5/7/2002: Cool new Hubble image - Page 2

Undertoad · 05-07-2002, 12:27 AM

The Hubble's new camera has started to produce some fantastic images. This one (minus the red square) is "the Tadpole", galaxy UGC 10214. Its tail was created in a collision with another galaxy, which they say is the bright object in the upper left of the tadpole. I can't picture how the collision caused the tail, but the whole idea of colliding galaxies is mind-boggling enough.

Until you look a little closer at the image. You're used to seeing Hubble images with little specks of light in them. What you're not used to is seeing that, in this image, those little specks are GALAXIES.

What I've done here is to take the biggest TIFF image available from

here

and I've downloaded the 57MB image of the Tadpole. I selected out the area roughly in that red square, and sized it for a decent size to see here. The effect is to zoom in on that section:

Even in the huge TIFF image, there isn't much to gain from "zooming" in further. The grain starts to blur what you're looking at.

Every one of those galaxies probably contains millions of stars. They believe there are about 6,000 visible in the shot. They believe some of them are extremely far away. How far? How does "the beginning of time" sound? 13 billion light years.

The mind boggles.

Here's a larger version of the Tadpole if you have the time or bandwidth to spare (156kb)

05-07-2002, 12:27 AM	#1
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	5/7/2002: Cool new Hubble image The Hubble's new camera has started to produce some fantastic images. This one (minus the red square) is "the Tadpole", galaxy UGC 10214. Its tail was created in a collision with another galaxy, which they say is the bright object in the upper left of the tadpole. I can't picture how the collision caused the tail, but the whole idea of colliding galaxies is mind-boggling enough. Until you look a little closer at the image. You're used to seeing Hubble images with little specks of light in them. What you're not used to is seeing that, in this image, those little specks are GALAXIES. What I've done here is to take the biggest TIFF image available from here and I've downloaded the 57MB image of the Tadpole. I selected out the area roughly in that red square, and sized it for a decent size to see here. The effect is to zoom in on that section: Even in the huge TIFF image, there isn't much to gain from "zooming" in further. The grain starts to blur what you're looking at. Every one of those galaxies probably contains millions of stars. They believe there are about 6,000 visible in the shot. They believe some of them are extremely far away. How far? How does "the beginning of time" sound? 13 billion light years. The mind boggles. Here's a larger version of the Tadpole if you have the time or bandwidth to spare (156kb)

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