The Webb Telescope

[PeterRS]

I am totally blown away when I try to think of space, the big bang and how it is that we come to be living in such a vast universe. I simply cannot comprehend what happened and continues to happen 'out there'. So I am staggered by the early photos from the Webb telescope. That these images were taken just a few hundred million years after the big bang is to me just unbelievable.

Images: NASA, BBC, CNN

[TotallyOz]

It was breathtaking for sure. I grew up near the original Space Camp and spent a great deal of time thinking about being an astronaut. I am always impressed when I see amazing things like this and do wonder what else is out there.

[Latbear4blk]

Unfortunately, there is a paywall. If you can access The Washington Post, they published a very educative annotated slides show with some Webb's photographies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/interactive/2022/nasa-webb-space-telescope-images-explained/?itid=sf_article_list

I am pasting a screenshot with  a quick sample:

 

 

 

 

[PeterRS]

I am even more blown away. 13.1 billion light years away. Only 700 million years after the Big Bang? How does one actually measure that? How long has that light taken to reach the telescope? What was the Big Bang? I was always taught that if something inflates then it must do so into something - like a balloon inflating into the air around it or a ship displacing the water it sails in? What existed prior to the Big Bang? Into what did that monster explosion of matter expand? Try as I have, I just cannot get my mind around it!

[lookin]

On 7/18/2022 at 6:39 PM, PeterRS said:

What existed prior to the Big Bang?

If I understand what I've read, one theory is that everything - all the matter in the universe, and all the energy - existed in a single point called the singularity.  ⚫  When it exploded, everything contained in it started flying away in all directions.  That's what we're seeing flying away from us today.

It's mind-boggling that everything we can see once existed in a single infinitesimal point, but smarter folks than I am believe that to be the case.

I've also read that someday things will start contracting again and everything - all matter and all energy - will collapse once more into another singularity, a single point containing everything.  And then I guess the whole thing could start all over again.

But I think there's another theory that says things will just keep flying away, expanding into space and never stopping until someday entropy will be complete and there won't be any identifiable matter or any measurable energy.  They call that 'heat death'.

I'm sure not the guy to explain what happened or what's going to happen but I recently saw a PBS special about the Webb telescope in which someone remarked how amazing it was that folks on this tiny planet of ours, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable solar system in an unremarkable galaxy, should have figured out how to look all the way to the edge of the universe.

I do think it's a privilege even to have these kinds of discussions.  In fact, if I had to choose between searching for the answer and actually having the answer, I think I'd pick the former.  But I couldn't swear I wouldn't page ahead to see how it all ends.  

[kokopelli 2]

It wasn't until about 1925 that Edwin Hubble (Hubble Telescope) published his findings that other galaxies existed beyond our Milky Way Galaxy. Who would have believed there were billions of other galaxies!!  And unlikely that anyone will ever travel to any of them much less travel to the nearest star.