Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
This Amazing Shot Of 10,000 Galaxies May Be The Hubble Telescope's Most Spectacular Photo Ever
X-Posted From GD...
This Amazing Shot Of 10,000 Galaxies May Be The Hubble Telescope's Most Spectacular Photo Ever
The Huffington Post | By David Freeman - HuffPo
Posted: 06/03/2014 6:09 pm EDT Updated: 1 hour ago
<snip>
NASA calls it the most colorful image ever captured by the Hubble Space Telescope--and the most comprehensive. It has to be one of the most spectacular.
But the image--the remarkable payoff of a new survey called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field--is more than merely beautiful. It may also help fill in some gaps in our understanding of how stars form.
The new Hubble image shows about 10,000 galaxies. It's the result of the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field project.
Previous versions of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field captured wavelengths of light from visible and near-infrared as well as the far-ultraviolet (UV), Alan Boyle wrote on the NBC News website. But near-ultraviolet light wasn't covered nearly as well.
When you add the UV light, you get quite a view.
And what a view it is! The new image, a false-color compilation of shots taken during the course of 841 orbits of Hubble between 2003 and 2012, contains roughly 10,000 galaxies in a vast variety of shapes and sizes.
"The galaxies show every possible...
<snip>
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/hubble-space-telescope-ultraviolet-10000-galaxies-photo_n_5440225.html
27 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Really, really, good.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood's_End
Now I have to read it again. List keeps getting longer...
The volcano that had reared Taratua up from the Pacific depths had been sleeping now for half a million years.
Yet in a little while, thought Reinhold, the island would be bathed with fires fiercer than any that
had attended its birth. He glanced towards the launching site, and his gaze climbed the pyramid of
scaffolding that still surrounded the “Columbus”. Two hundred feet above the ground, the ship’s prow was
catching the last rays of the descending sun. This was one of the last nights it would ever know; soon it
would be floating in the eternal sunshine of space.
It was quiet here beneath the palms, high up on the rocky spine of the island. The only sound from the Project was the occasional yammering of an air compressor or the faint shout of a workman. Reinhold
had grown fond of these clustered palms; almost every evening he had come here to survey his little
empire. It saddened him to think that they would be blasted to atoms when the “Columbus” rose in flame
and fury to the stars.
A mile beyond the reef, the “James Forrestal” had switched on her searchlights and was sweeping
the dark waters. The sun had now vanished completely, and the swift tropical night was racing in from the
east. Reinhold wondered, a little sardonically, if the carrier expected to find Russian submarines so close
to shore.
The thought of Russia turned his mind, as it always did, to Konrad, and that morning in the
cataclysmic spring of 1945. More than thirty years had passed, but the memory of those last days when the Reich was crumbling beneath the waves from the East and from the West had never faded. He could still see Konrad’s tired blue eyes, and the golden stubble on his chin, as they shook hands and parted in that ruined Prussian village, while the refugees streamed endlessly past. It was a parting that symbolized
everything that had since happened to the world—the cleavage between East and West. For Konrad chose the road to Moscow. Reinhold had thought him a fool, but now he was not so sure.
For thirty years he had assumed that Konrad was dead. It was only a week ago that Colonel
Sandmeyer, of Technical Intelligence, had given him the news. He didn’t like Sandmeyer, and he was sure
the feeling was mutual. But neither let that interfere with business.
“Mr. Hoffmann,” the Colonel had begun, in his best official manner, “I’ve just had some alarming
information from Washington. It’s top secret, of course, but we’ve decided to break it to the engineering
staff so that they’ll realize the necessity for speed.” He paused for effect, but the gesture was wasted on
Reinhold. Somehow, he already knew what was coming.
“The Russians are nearly level with us. They’ve got some kind of atomic drive—it may even be more
efficient than ours, and they’re building a ship on the shores of Lake Baikal. We don’t know how far
they’ve got, but Intelligence believe it may be launched this year. You know what that means.”
Yes, thought Reinhold, I know. The race is on—and we may not win it.
“Do you know who’s running their team?” he had asked, not really expecting an answer. To his
surprise, Colonel Sandmeyer had pushed across a typewritten sheet and there at its head was the name:
Konrad Schneider.
“You knew a lot of these men at Peenemünde, didn’t you?” said the Colonel. “That may give us some
insight into their methods. I’d like you to let me have notes on as many of them as you can—their
specialities, the bright ideas they had, and so on. I know it’s asking a lot after all this time—but see what
you can do.”
“Konrad Schneider is the only one who matters,” Reinhold had answered. “He was brilliant—the
others are just competent engineers. Heaven only knows what he’s done in thirty years. Remember—he’s
probably seen all our results and we haven’t seen any of his. That gives him a decided advantage.”
He hadn’t meant this as a criticism of Intelligence, but for a moment is seemed as if Sandmeyer was
going to be offended. Then the Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
“It works both ways—you’ve told me that yourself. Our free exchange of information means swifter
progress, even if we do give away a few secrets. The Russian research departments probably don’t know
what their own people are doing half the time. We’ll show them that Democracy can get to the moon first.”
Democracy—Nuts! thought Reinhold, but knew better than to say it. One Konrad Schneider was
worth a million names on an electoral roll. And what had Konrad done by this time, with all the resources
of the U.S.S.R. behind him? Perhaps, even now, his ship was already outward bound from Earth...
The sun which had deserted Taratua was still high above Lake Baikal when Konrad Schneider and
the Assistant Commissar for Nuclear Science walked slowly back from the motor test rig. Their ears were
still throbbing painfully, though the last thunderous echoes had died out across the lake ten minutes
before.
“Why the long face?” asked Grigorievitch suddenly. “You should be happy now. In another month
we’ll be on our way, and the Yankees will be choking themselves with rage.”
“You’re an optimist, as usual,” said Schneider. “Even though the motor works, it’s not as easy as
that. True, I can’t see any serious obstacles now—but I’m worried about the reports from Taratua. I’ve told you how good Hoffmann is, and he’s got billions of dollars behind him. Those photographs of his ship
aren’t very clear, but it looks as if it’s not far from completion. And we know he tested his motor five weeks ago.”
“Don’t worry,” laughed Grigorievitch. “They’re the ones who are going to have the big surprise.
Remember—they don’t know a thing about us.”
Schneider wondered if that was true, but decided it was much safer to express no doubts. That might
start Grigorievitch’s mind exploring far too many tortuous channels, and if there had been a leak, he
would find it hard enough to clear himself.
The guard saluted as he re-entered the administration building. There were nearly as many soldiers
here, he thought grimly, as technicians. But that was how the Russians did things, and as long as they kept out of his way he had no complaints. On the whole—with exasperating exceptions—events had turned out very much as he had hoped. Only the future could tell if he or Reinhold had made the better choice.
He was already at work on his final report when the sound of shouting voices disturbed him. For a
moment he sat motionless at his desk, wondering what conceivable event could have disturbed the rigid
discipline of the camp. Then he walked to the window—and for the first time in his life he knew despair...
The stars were all around him as Reinhold descended the little hill. Out at sea, the “Forrestal” was
still sweeping the water with her fingers of light, while further along the beach the scaffolding round the
“Columbus” had transformed itself into an illuminated Christmas tree. Only the projecting prow of the
ship lay like a dark shadow across the stars.
A radio was blaring dance music from the living quarters, and unconsciously Reinhold’s feet
accelerated to the rhythm.
He had almost reached the narrow road along the edge of the sands when some premonition, some
half-glimpsed movement, made him stop. Puzzled, he glanced from land to sea and back again; it was
some little time before he thought of looking at the sky.
Then Reinhold Hoffmann knew, as did Konrad Schneider at this same moment, that he had lost his
race. And he knew that he had lost it, not by the few weeks or months that he had feared, but by millennia.
The huge and silent shadows driving across the stars, more miles above his head than he dared to guess, were as far beyond his little “Columbus” as it surpassed the log canoes of paleolithic man. For a moment that seemed to last forever, Reinhold watched, as all the world was watching, while the great ships descended in their overwhelming majesty—until at last he could hear the faint scream of their passage through the thin air of the stratosphere.
He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had laboured to take men to the
stars, and in the moment of success the stars—the aloof, indifferent stars—had come to him. This was the
moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits
from its frozen parent cliffs and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride. All that the past ages had achieved
was as nothing now; only one thought echoed and re-echoed through Reinhold’s brain;
The human race was no longer alone.
Yet in a little while, thought Reinhold, the island would be bathed with fires fiercer than any that
had attended its birth. He glanced towards the launching site, and his gaze climbed the pyramid of
scaffolding that still surrounded the “Columbus”. Two hundred feet above the ground, the ship’s prow was
catching the last rays of the descending sun. This was one of the last nights it would ever know; soon it
would be floating in the eternal sunshine of space.
It was quiet here beneath the palms, high up on the rocky spine of the island. The only sound from the Project was the occasional yammering of an air compressor or the faint shout of a workman. Reinhold
had grown fond of these clustered palms; almost every evening he had come here to survey his little
empire. It saddened him to think that they would be blasted to atoms when the “Columbus” rose in flame
and fury to the stars.
A mile beyond the reef, the “James Forrestal” had switched on her searchlights and was sweeping
the dark waters. The sun had now vanished completely, and the swift tropical night was racing in from the
east. Reinhold wondered, a little sardonically, if the carrier expected to find Russian submarines so close
to shore.
The thought of Russia turned his mind, as it always did, to Konrad, and that morning in the
cataclysmic spring of 1945. More than thirty years had passed, but the memory of those last days when the Reich was crumbling beneath the waves from the East and from the West had never faded. He could still see Konrad’s tired blue eyes, and the golden stubble on his chin, as they shook hands and parted in that ruined Prussian village, while the refugees streamed endlessly past. It was a parting that symbolized
everything that had since happened to the world—the cleavage between East and West. For Konrad chose the road to Moscow. Reinhold had thought him a fool, but now he was not so sure.
For thirty years he had assumed that Konrad was dead. It was only a week ago that Colonel
Sandmeyer, of Technical Intelligence, had given him the news. He didn’t like Sandmeyer, and he was sure
the feeling was mutual. But neither let that interfere with business.
“Mr. Hoffmann,” the Colonel had begun, in his best official manner, “I’ve just had some alarming
information from Washington. It’s top secret, of course, but we’ve decided to break it to the engineering
staff so that they’ll realize the necessity for speed.” He paused for effect, but the gesture was wasted on
Reinhold. Somehow, he already knew what was coming.
“The Russians are nearly level with us. They’ve got some kind of atomic drive—it may even be more
efficient than ours, and they’re building a ship on the shores of Lake Baikal. We don’t know how far
they’ve got, but Intelligence believe it may be launched this year. You know what that means.”
Yes, thought Reinhold, I know. The race is on—and we may not win it.
“Do you know who’s running their team?” he had asked, not really expecting an answer. To his
surprise, Colonel Sandmeyer had pushed across a typewritten sheet and there at its head was the name:
Konrad Schneider.
“You knew a lot of these men at Peenemünde, didn’t you?” said the Colonel. “That may give us some
insight into their methods. I’d like you to let me have notes on as many of them as you can—their
specialities, the bright ideas they had, and so on. I know it’s asking a lot after all this time—but see what
you can do.”
“Konrad Schneider is the only one who matters,” Reinhold had answered. “He was brilliant—the
others are just competent engineers. Heaven only knows what he’s done in thirty years. Remember—he’s
probably seen all our results and we haven’t seen any of his. That gives him a decided advantage.”
He hadn’t meant this as a criticism of Intelligence, but for a moment is seemed as if Sandmeyer was
going to be offended. Then the Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
“It works both ways—you’ve told me that yourself. Our free exchange of information means swifter
progress, even if we do give away a few secrets. The Russian research departments probably don’t know
what their own people are doing half the time. We’ll show them that Democracy can get to the moon first.”
Democracy—Nuts! thought Reinhold, but knew better than to say it. One Konrad Schneider was
worth a million names on an electoral roll. And what had Konrad done by this time, with all the resources
of the U.S.S.R. behind him? Perhaps, even now, his ship was already outward bound from Earth...
The sun which had deserted Taratua was still high above Lake Baikal when Konrad Schneider and
the Assistant Commissar for Nuclear Science walked slowly back from the motor test rig. Their ears were
still throbbing painfully, though the last thunderous echoes had died out across the lake ten minutes
before.
“Why the long face?” asked Grigorievitch suddenly. “You should be happy now. In another month
we’ll be on our way, and the Yankees will be choking themselves with rage.”
“You’re an optimist, as usual,” said Schneider. “Even though the motor works, it’s not as easy as
that. True, I can’t see any serious obstacles now—but I’m worried about the reports from Taratua. I’ve told you how good Hoffmann is, and he’s got billions of dollars behind him. Those photographs of his ship
aren’t very clear, but it looks as if it’s not far from completion. And we know he tested his motor five weeks ago.”
“Don’t worry,” laughed Grigorievitch. “They’re the ones who are going to have the big surprise.
Remember—they don’t know a thing about us.”
Schneider wondered if that was true, but decided it was much safer to express no doubts. That might
start Grigorievitch’s mind exploring far too many tortuous channels, and if there had been a leak, he
would find it hard enough to clear himself.
The guard saluted as he re-entered the administration building. There were nearly as many soldiers
here, he thought grimly, as technicians. But that was how the Russians did things, and as long as they kept out of his way he had no complaints. On the whole—with exasperating exceptions—events had turned out very much as he had hoped. Only the future could tell if he or Reinhold had made the better choice.
He was already at work on his final report when the sound of shouting voices disturbed him. For a
moment he sat motionless at his desk, wondering what conceivable event could have disturbed the rigid
discipline of the camp. Then he walked to the window—and for the first time in his life he knew despair...
The stars were all around him as Reinhold descended the little hill. Out at sea, the “Forrestal” was
still sweeping the water with her fingers of light, while further along the beach the scaffolding round the
“Columbus” had transformed itself into an illuminated Christmas tree. Only the projecting prow of the
ship lay like a dark shadow across the stars.
A radio was blaring dance music from the living quarters, and unconsciously Reinhold’s feet
accelerated to the rhythm.
He had almost reached the narrow road along the edge of the sands when some premonition, some
half-glimpsed movement, made him stop. Puzzled, he glanced from land to sea and back again; it was
some little time before he thought of looking at the sky.
Then Reinhold Hoffmann knew, as did Konrad Schneider at this same moment, that he had lost his
race. And he knew that he had lost it, not by the few weeks or months that he had feared, but by millennia.
The huge and silent shadows driving across the stars, more miles above his head than he dared to guess, were as far beyond his little “Columbus” as it surpassed the log canoes of paleolithic man. For a moment that seemed to last forever, Reinhold watched, as all the world was watching, while the great ships descended in their overwhelming majesty—until at last he could hear the faint scream of their passage through the thin air of the stratosphere.
He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had laboured to take men to the
stars, and in the moment of success the stars—the aloof, indifferent stars—had come to him. This was the
moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits
from its frozen parent cliffs and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride. All that the past ages had achieved
was as nothing now; only one thought echoed and re-echoed through Reinhold’s brain;
The human race was no longer alone.
The Entire Book (.pdf file): http://vk.com/doc6407351_212046447?hash=6447f289a413cea74a&dl=c716711868c67875d5
Have a good night!
Previous versions of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field captured wavelengths of light from visible and near-infrared as well as the far-ultraviolet (UV), Alan Boyle wrote on the NBC News website. But near-ultraviolet light wasn't covered nearly as well.
explain why they don't land here and introduce themselves. I wouldn't. 
