Eric Idle Describes the Universe

I just can't get over the Hubble Deep Field project, and its incredibly humbling results.

Today's FamilyFirst site is a bit of Monty Python humor aimed at educating you on the earth's relationship to the Milky Way galaxy. It's fun, of course, and darned educational.

But first, a few more facts on the Deep Field results.

In case you missed yesterday's column, the second Deep Field project involved the Hubble telescope focusing on a patch of sky known to be completely unexceptional. It used several color filters to enhance any faint objects that might appear. The exposure took place over eleven days. It was like opening the shutter on your camera and forgetting about it for a while.

The galaxies that were revealed numbered approximately 10,000.

Bringing this into perspective, let's look at how much sky was covered.

Look up at a full moon. If a similar scan was made of the moon, it would take fifty exposures to cover its entire face.

Got that? The Deep Field shot was 1/50th the area of the full moon. Astronomers compare it to looking through an eight-foot soda straw.

There were 10,000 galaxies seen in that area.

That's humbling. The universe is an extremely large place.

Enjoy our lightweight look at the cosmos, thanks to Eric Idle.

Click here

Digg It! It's Del.icio.us! Furl It!