The Hubble Space Telescope recently celebrated its 18th anniversary. Since its launch on April 24 1990, this Earth-orbiting stargazer has beamed back some spectacular sights: images that are awesome in the truest meaning of the word. I love looking up at the stars with my telescope. Abraham once compared the sands upon the seashore with the countless numbers of stars in the heavens and marvelled.
My Son Antony and I recently went on an overnight Hike and outdoor camp (more on that another time), although I was a wimp and slept in our two man pop-up tent by myself, he slept with the rest of the young men in our church youth group under the stars and although it wasn’t that clear a sky, you know how beautiful the night sky can be.
Anyway, back to the Hubble…. To commemorate Hubble’s 18th birthday, space scientists have released a collection of astounding pictures, each showing close encounters between distant galaxies. As these vast galaxies approach each other, they morph into beautiful new shapes, with collisions sometimes giving rise to grand mergers and sites of brand new star births.
Galaxy bridge
This galaxy pair, located in the constellation Virgo, are visibly interacting via a dim bridge of stars.
Two spirals collide
A remarkable collision between two spiral galaxies taking place in the Hercules Galaxy Cluster, located in the constellation of Hercules. The two spirals are now linked by their spindly arms.
Galactic hug
Markarian 848 consists of two galaxies locked in a cosmic hug. Two long, curved arms of gas and stars link the galaxies together.
Overlapping galaxies
The highly symmetric galaxy in the foreground of this image is seen nearly face-on and is partly lit by the background galaxy it overlaps. It is also 350 million light-years from Earth, located in a constellation named Dorado, the Swordfish.
Butterfly
NGC 6240, some 400 million light-years from Earth, is a butterfly-shaped galaxy formed from two smaller merging galaxies. X-ray observations have discovered two giant black holes within the structure - these will drift towards each other and eventually join together.
When I see the beauty of the skies, I will ponder Life’s biggest questions and have peace in the reassurance that I know where I came from and I know why I’m here and most importantly I know the opportunity that is afforded to all mankind - to where we might go, our final destiny.
See my other entry on this: Life’s 3 big questions?
Your friend, John Deighton
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