They're pretty and stuff, but so hard to relate to. I think the rainbow swirls in oil spilled on the ground evokes more in me.
Each pixel for most of these photos depicts something gazillion times bigger than Earth. The Earth is gazillion times bigger than any of us. Conclusion? We're worth nothing.
I still remember an old theology teacher talking about the improbability of the existence of all the conditions necessary for life in a single place... that it was so unlikely, surely it could only happen once. Surely we're alone. He made the comparison that "that's as likely as every teacher in this wing randomly punching a hole in the wall with his pencil, and having all the holes line up in a perfectly straight line. That sound like something that wasn't planned? That sound like something that's going to happen more than once?" Naturally I said "sure, you just have to try it several trillion times." He was piiiiiissssed. He also said that we were in the approximate center of the universe. He conveniently failed to answer me when I pointed out that that's probably because we can see an equal distance in every direction. There are just no words for some people. I can't fathom how ANYONE can honestly believe there are no other forms of intelligent life in the universe. Now, whether we ever ENCOUNTER them... that's a totally different question.
I took a class my freshman year called The Violent Universe and man, that class was freaking amazing! Only class I actually read for in all my undergrad studies. The teacher was hot combine that with listening to her talk about something interest and you got me going to class everyday!
My question would be (as a believer in the Bible no less), "So then, where does God live? Is He 'not of this world' as He says, Himself?" That'll stump 'em every time.
Well, the part about him thinking we are likely the only intelligent life in the universe was just his opinion, nothing in the Bible says anything to support that. In fact, taking into consideration Ezekiel, I would say that it is more likely that we are NOT, just from what the Bible itself says. However, it is technically true that we ARE in the center of the universe; but it's only true because it's true no matter where you are in the universe. Hard to wrap the brain around that, but astronomically speaking, it is true.
I totally agree. I have no doubt there are other intelligent life forms out there. However, if you think of the age of the Universe (always getting revised, what is it 13 billion now?) and how long we've been around (50k years?), even if there were some super intelligent species that could travel the universe, it's likely the time their civilization has lived is over before we ever came about. Let's say their civilization lasted 1 million years before they burned out and destroyed themselves, we'd totally miss each other in the timeline.
Where are those from? They're beautiful, but my suspicion is that it's one of those "coloration provided by artist" things. I think most space pictures generally are.
Usuallyre not colored by an 'artist' per se, but rather simply substituting a color for some other wavelink beyond what our eyes can see, to give it a visual representation. Alot of times what we are seeing in photos as colors is really just enhanced x-rays, things like that. So what you see in those is stuff that's actually THERE, but if, for example, you were in a space-ship sitting in space, you would not actually see 99% of it with your own eyes. Think of it like one of those enhanced photos which shows the magnetic field of the Earth - it's there, but we can't actually see it.
