“In the beginning, God created
The heavens and the earth”—
A most myopic story of
The universe’s birth
The lenses on the Hubble
Look through time as well as space
The ancients might have spied with it
Their vast Creator’s face
The skies they saw were very small
Those centuries ago
We’ve traded in those old beliefs
For things we really know
If we should keep exploring
All that science will allow…
Imagine how much more we’ll know
Two thousand years from now!
NASA just released their latest deep-field image–the XDF, or eXtreme Deep Field, which combines ten years’ worth of images. There are over 5,000 galaxies in this image. That would be over 5,000 galaxies more than the people who wrote about “the heavens and the earth” could even imagine.
How tiny a fragment of the sky is this? Take a look:
Deep Field in perspective
I wonder how long it will be before we look at these images as important but quaint artifacts, long surpassed by pictures with better resolution, more detail, surprises we can’t even imagine at present. I also cannot imagine thinking that a world view that hasn’t changed in 2,000 years is somehow superior to one that changes with each new discovery.
Lovely poetry, lovely ideas.
Thank you.
Truth in rhyme.
Looking back in time.
The starstuff that is us
Sees so far
Beyond ourselves
With eyes of glass and metal.
Eyes of science
Unfogged by superstition now
Well mostly
Through a looking glass into darkness.
You’ll get a surprise alright – when the stars fall from heaven, and god rolls up the sky like a scroll. (Revelation 6:13-14)
Of course for every-day* viewing the ancients had it way over us: damn light pollution. City-dweller me is lucky if Orion gives me a belt.
:-(
_________________________
* or rather ‘night’.
How dare you, Sir. Everyone knows that the Bible is scientifically accurate and infallible. The Hubble conspiracy is well documented; it was never fixed and all these supposed ‘images’ it produces are just figments of Atheistic scientists imaginations to further their greedy grant funding needs and advance the secular liberal agenda.
Hehe; that was pretty good and not even close to the craziest thing I have read this week.
> “Hehe; that was pretty good…”
Not even close. The reading level about 6 grades too high, the grammer way too good, and not nearly enough capital letters and exclamation points.
But in a way, the discoveries just make me sad. Sad that there are those 5,000 galaxies (not counting all the others in the rest of the universe) that I will never get to visit. Never get to know about the planets, the possible life forms… but at least knowing that they are there is more than Mathew, Mark, Luke and John ever knew.
Doubting Thomas
Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
Makes me want a TARDIS.
Beginnings seen through
Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Yes, I did build that.
Well Gawd dam Me and my fanci learn’n!! (air Banjo*)
*You actually heard banjo in your mind, didn’t you?
The fundamentalists’ god is too small, too preoccupied with one tiny planet to have created the whole vast universe. A deity concerned with teenagers masturbating could never have created one galaxy, let alone billions of them.