NASA Has Released The Largest Picture Ever Taken. It Will Rock Your Universe!

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Farlander

Of course, which is why I wanted to know who those "some" are who say we're alone.

Fundie Christians, that's who.

They argue that because Jesus came to earth, that it proves we're special in all the universe, meaning there's no other sentient life anywhere...

I myself am not necessarily a very religious person, but I can see ways in which religion can coexist with the idea of life elsewhere.

I realize you mentioned fundamental Christians (which is their own classification of "religion" entirely), but what about the Catholic Church? They have already come out and said that their take on the matter is that God is the creator of the entire universe -- including other intelligent aliens.

I can also imagine a religious person who feels the Judeo-Christiam-Muslim bible and (specifically) the Christian ideas of Christ could have been just an Earth-centric bible. Other aliens may have their own "Christ", and if they don't, a religion could just say "their Christ hasn't come yet for some reason or another".

What I'm saying is that there are many ways a religion -- even Fundamentalist Christians -- can reconcile their faith with the idea of intelligent aliens. So if those people don't believe in life elsewhere, I think their religion is not the only reason the feel that way.

Absolutely.

I myself believe in Jesus Christ, son of God, but I see nothing in the Bible or anywhere else that would indicate we are necessarily the only sentient life in the universe.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Is there a way we could be able to explore the picture?
It would be nice if they made a google-earth-like version from it.

a reply to: PrivilegedPeasant

So just to be clear.... is ever one of those little pixel-sized dots of light are actually stars (suns)?

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: PrivilegedPeasant

That is pretty cool but it fails to boggle the mind as much as this image does:

There are thousands of galaxies in that image, and that's just a tiny portion of the universe-the area covered in that photo would be the size of a ball bearing at arms length, imagine what we'd find if we could scan the entire sky.

Quite true.

And as I mentioned in a post above, aliens somewhere across the universe could be looking at their own version of the "Hubble Deep Field" image that could include our Milky Way Galaxy, but in their version of this image taken from their part of the universe, our galaxy could just be on of those anonymous little dots in the image, like (for example) maybe the galaxy indicated by the arrow below:



There could be aliens who could not even really take any specific notice of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, simply because it is just one of 100's of billions of galaxies in the universe.

Always amazing to see how imaginable large the universe is ! That's what I call the big picture...

a reply to: Farlander

I believe without these images "religious" people would not believe in life on other planets. As we become more aware of relative truths the leaders of these religions need to incorporate these theories so they don't become out of touch of a progressing society. Evolution is a great example of this. Once Proposterous, now accepted and beliefs warped as a result.

If the bible said we are an insignificant speck on a cosmic scale and that God was too busy creating the universe to care about our prayers than I would be the biggest religious nut out there

There seems to be a lot more profit in exploring the vast universe we see here than pumping money into the military industrial complex. What do TPTB know that we don't?

I always thought education was overrated where policy decision making is concerned. We could probably run the whole world right out of ATS and have a lot more success than the madmen running the world today.

On with the day...

UNREAL.
This LINK is absolutely mind boggling, I grasp for breathe while watching a video as to how insignificant we are in the universe.

originally posted by: whiteblack
UNREAL.
This LINK is absolutely mind boggling, I grasp for breathe while watching a video as to how insignificant we are in the universe.

That is very cool. thanks!

originally posted by: whiteblack
UNREAL.
This LINK is absolutely mind boggling, I grasp for breathe while watching a video as to how insignificant we are in the universe.

Or, we could feel that even though we are small, we are still part of something grand.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Amazing. We are so tiny.

To think that god cares what you believe or wear or do is pretty ridiculous when you really think about it. We are nothing but tiny blips on the radar, the blink of an eye.

Thanks for posting, what a beautiful and mind-boggling picture. It humbles me to know I'm lucky enough to be a part of it all.

That's what makes us all the more special and this amazing planet so important. What if we really arethe only intelligent life out there and what if earth is the only inhabitable planet? That is scary!

Beautiful. When I look at the Hubble deep field images it makes me cry my eyes out. That's all the proof I need that there is a God and that it talks to us constantly and collectively; telling us that it's our destiny as a species to go out there and explore it all if we can finally get it together, or we can continue as we have, waste our potential and never know.

We owe it to future generations to give them a shot at it.

Thank you for sharing that, it made my day.

It just strengthens my belief in being more than just "this"

That's all levels of insane. MIND = BOGGLED.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: PrivilegedPeasant

I cannot watch videos.

Anywhere I can download the picture for my desktop wallpaper?

I hear the pic is awesome...

I agree,

does anyone know where to find the original picture (the one with the mountain in) i NEEEEEEEED this as a wallpaper!

EDIT: i found it!

originally posted by: intergalactic fire
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Is there a way we could be able to explore the picture?
It would be nice if they made a google-earth-like version from it.

Someone with a large hard drive, good RAM, and lots of patience should upload it to Gigapan. That website is perfect for browsing such humongous images.

Here are some of my own gigapans: www.gigapan.com...

[Edit] nvm, found a browsable version here: www.spacetelescope.org...

originally posted by: Soloprotocol
Wow, one things for sure, if we blow this planet to smithereens tomorrow. no-one would miss us.

Who knows? There could be advanced beings zooming in, watching the grand drama of Planet Earth unfold, reality TV style. It'd be a tragic ending similar to us humans watching the last days of an endangered species in the jungle.

And it all started with a Bih Bang. ha ha ha ha ha

I saw the video.

It reminded me how utterly small this universe is and how I am Great, Awesome and much much larger than the Universe itself.

Keep it up NASA, the larger pictures and videos posted the greater I become in comparison.

a reply to: Akragon

It would kind of suck if we are.

The image kind of makes me want to get out there and travel the stars. But deep down I would still miss our little ball of dirt.

a reply to: Xeven

This in 2017, where our civilization is 10 000 years old. We might not exterminate ourselves. Now,
Imagine a civilization who got a hold of themselves and used wisdom over technology at some point to avoid a huge mess, and let say their's is 1 million years old as opposed to 10 000. Would you say it is impossible to communicate and travel across the stars? I bet they can and do. I bet millions do, but maybe not across galaxies.

Just sorting out the star systems in 1 galaxy is work for millennia. Say you can travel wherever you want, how long before you end up in the milky way among 200 billion destinations?

Another point is, intelligent lifeforms don't have to be humanoids, they could be bubbles floating around with no need to travel and still might have a very evolved society.