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107 Comments
- schure1, on 03/08/2008, -0/+37Distance from earth to:
Sun ~8 light minutes
Neptune ~4 light hours
Nearest star ~4.3 light years
Center of Milky Way (our galaxy) ~28,000 light years
Nearest galaxy, Andromeda, ~2,000,000 light years
Galaxy M104 aka Sombrero Galaxy 28,000,000 light years - Taikun, on 03/08/2008, -0/+19My God, it's full of stars!
- falloutsyndrome, on 03/08/2008, -1/+17This is a galaxy, not a solar system. There are billions upon billions of these, each with thousands if not millions of planets within it. How are there still people who have the audacity to say that there isn't another form of intelligent life out there?
- WinterWolf33, on 03/08/2008, -0/+16The universe is indeed vast.
- ultraJesus, on 03/08/2008, -0/+12You have ear cancer.
- sgupt, on 03/08/2008, -0/+10I don't really see how I'm in any way plagiarizing. I wasn't able to fit the entire APOD description in the digg description field, so I decided to post the rest here for everyones information. At least I'm bringing something useful to the table, unlike you. So GFTO.
- jhshukla, on 03/08/2008, -0/+10http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod.rss
- ayeroxor, on 03/08/2008, -0/+7Simply put, if you aimed the world's largest flashlight at that galaxy and turned it on, and there were "people" somewhere in that galaxy, they would not see your flashlight turn on for 28 million years. By the time we're seeing the image/light from this galaxy, it might not even exist anymore. The image of the galaxy that we are seeing today was emitted from this galaxy 28 million years ago. Also, it is (according to current theory) impossible to travel at, or even close to, the speed of light. BUT, if you did get in a ship that could travel at the speed of light, it would take your ship 28 million years to get to this galaxy's location in space.
- camelopardalis, on 03/08/2008, -1/+7What is really amazing is the software tool -- PixInsight -- that was used to process the data and bring out the details of the dust lanes in the center of the galaxy.
- inactive, on 03/08/2008, -0/+6Images like that really put things into perspective and make me feel insignificant all at the same time. Amazing.
- thtroyer, on 03/08/2008, -0/+6And light can travel the circumference of the earth 7.48 times in a second. (Just for a reference.)
- ayeroxor, on 03/08/2008, -0/+6What I love love LOVE about this image is ALL the other galaxies in the background! Try to count them all! Then try to convince yourself of the statistics that we're the ONLY intelligent life in the universe.
Like Carl Sagan says, if just one in a million of the stars in the sky has planets, and if only one in a million of those has life, and if just one in a million of those has intelligent life, then there are 10,000 unique intelligent civilizations in the universe.
(citation: Sagan's Extraterrestrial Hope http://www.probe.org/content/view/106/67/ ) - Visionz, on 03/08/2008, -0/+6Truly amazing picture, APOTD delivers once again.
- dudetaz2003, on 03/08/2008, -0/+5makes a rather nice background.
- PeterODactyl, on 03/08/2008, -0/+5Bender with a cowboy hat.
- Uranium118, on 03/08/2008, -0/+42.64894795 × 10^23 meters or 1.64597995 × 10^20 miles or a lot
- samus1225, on 03/08/2008, -0/+4anyone else see the twin galaxies that look like they are holding hands (arms)? If you look at the hi-res photo, it's at the very bottom.
- sgupt, on 03/08/2008, -5/+9Additional Information:
Hubble Space Telescope archival image data has been reprocessed to create this alternative look at the well-known galaxy. The newly developed processing improves the visibility of details otherwise lost in overwhelming glare, in this case allowing features of the galaxy's dust lanes to be followed well into the bright central region. - meteors, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3Even in Star Wars and Star Trek, everything is confined to one galaxy. In other words, we haven't even begin to imagine what it would be like to venture into intergalactic space, and it will be a very long time before that happens.
- Docsampas, on 03/08/2008, -3/+6Fantástica esta imagem!
- t0ken, on 03/08/2008, -1/+4Stop blatant trolling.
- 3leggedHorse, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3Dugg for being 28 million light years away (*****).
- r3s0p, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3Can anyone help me understand the visible scale of this? For example, if i were to locate this object in the night sky with my naked eye, how large would it appear (ignoring magnitude, i don't care if it would be too dim to see). Would it span the head of a pin at arms length, the tip of my thumb, etc? I was shocked the first time i saw the 'Moon over Andromeda' composite that shows how big the Andromeda galaxy is in the night sky (i had always assumed it was a small speck to the naked eye).
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061228.html - Buzzbean, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3Just go here daily:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html - inactive, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3There are a hundred billion galaxies, each with a hundred billion stars, each of which can support hundreds of planets/moons. Even if the odds that life evolves on a planet are vanishingly low - say, one in a trillion, that leaves billions of planets that possibly host advanced life forms.
- meteors, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2It would take a beam of light 100,000 years just to traverse our *own* galaxy.
Until Edwin Hubble discovered the existence of other galaxies, everyone just assumed that our galaxy *was* the universe, because it's so big! - diggpandit, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3Imagine the end of universe, how far can it be, and what is after it? :-)
- ultraJesus, on 03/09/2008, -0/+2Tasty!
- diggpandit, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2I'm sorry I should have captured a photo for you, I just passed by few days ago :-D
- jord, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3yeah... because 50.000 light years would be something a spaceship could just 'pass by'
- Yetisquatch, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2and you have man ***** that secrete a byproduct of yoohoo and cheetos dust.
- BryanJK, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3sometimes religious and ignorance
- theghoul, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3Wow. We need to break this light speed barrier. Imagine traveling there.
- MusicalGenius, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2M104 has always been my favorite. I have the Celestia Plugins and what not...BUT I would LOVE an actual 3D sim of it.
- fkr3, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3Additional Information:
Now my dekstop background. NASA really needs to make some sort of interactive desktop wallpaper app that'll let them recommend awesome pictures instead of having to wait for them to show up on digg. - inactive, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2i love apod it has been my homepage forever - these pictures are truly awesome - and to think THIS IS US ! - we are star children - doesn't that make you feel great !
- inactive, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1I want to put something really dirty here
- sgupt, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1Yes! The old pictures show very little to no details of the central area of the galaxy. And I don't think you've ever been able to see the far side of the galaxy before, but I may be mistaken on that part.
- chiklit, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/ ...
There's the original image before they reprocessed it. - melonade, on 03/09/2008, -0/+1No, it would have to be a lot smaller.
- t0ken, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1There is also a Google gadget if you are into that sort of thing.
- Sparticuz, on 03/09/2008, -0/+1Thank you much
- melonade, on 03/09/2008, -0/+1Light
- fzammetti, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1When will the narrow-mindedness end? How many times in the course of human history has someone said X Y or Z is impossible, and not too long after, X, Y and Z are common occurances.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming we'll all be flying to stars any time soon, but when will people learn to stop saying *anything* is impossible? It's a statement that's been proven foolish time and time again.
And how many times have we all just "known better", the laws of science say something can never and will never be possible, and it turns out it is?
No, I'm not holding my breath for FTL travel, but I'm not about to say it'll never happen, and no one with a clue about the history of our species would be foolish enough to do so either (of course, it's a bit of a moot point I suppose because it's probably not likely that any of us will be around to say NYA-NYA to the other by the time the impossible is made possible).
I mean, how arrogant is it anyway to think we have a theory (relativity) that is so competely infallable, and by extension our species is, that something just can never be? What, Einstein can't be wrong? Just because so far it's been spot-on doesn't preclude finding out differently some day. - twotimesthru, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1Is there somewhere I can just volunteer to ride on the next hubble... I mean, I know I'll probably never come back.. but I'm game.
- bananapatch, on 03/10/2008, -0/+1We *are* on a space ship, just passing by
- ryan83189, on 03/08/2008, -0/+12,896,924,710,000,000,000,000. football fields in the layman's measurement system.
- Raziel66, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1I suppose the sound barrier will never be broken either right? Right??!! Oh wait...
Never say never. - inactive, on 03/08/2008, -1/+2-
- JeffrySG, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1what amazes me is how many other visible galaxies there are in that image...
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