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Hands down, one of the coolest things I've ever seen

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Very cool. I wonder if it goes the other way as well. To the infinitely small?

I'm reminded by the Grant Williams final line in 1957 classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man"....

"And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears locked away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist."
 
I do find it curious that two separate stars would be noted as the largest star known;
First - VY Canis Majoris, then the next photo below states W Cephai is the largest star known.
Even with that pesky contradiction, that was a terrific post.
 
bobheck said:
Maybe I'm just an easily astounded bumpkin, but this image/poster strikes me as beyond cool.

I would have posted the image itself, but it was too large for forum limits.

So, here is a link. Obviously, you must expand to 100% size to view.

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2706/spaceb.jpg
Click to expand...

Hey I agree! That is soooooooo cool! just left me going WOW!

I know it is human nature to explore etc...but it seems sometimes odd/sad/annoying that in peoples' quest to prove that there is life on other planets, that they forget about the one that they live on....We have not finished exploring this one yet...So much not yet discovered or explained (and i am not just talking about the physical like land masses etc...)....Oops...now I am stating the blummin obvious!:D
 
I used to show the photo with all the galaxies to my students (8th graders). And I used to tell them the photo was the equivalent of holding out a dime at arms length. Looks like it is even smaller than that.

Either way the "wow" factor is extremely high even for middle school kids that think they know it all. Because I ask them what the photo is of. And they shrug it off and say "stars". Then some of them start looking closer and realize they can't be just stars. And as we talk, the scale starts to slowly register. (As if it can really register completely) Some of them are completely blown away by it. I can just see it on their faces as they gaze at it. And then knowing that the photo is just a tiny slice of the sky it is almost overwhelming. I know I am in complete awe.

So, do aliens exist??
 
TClaeys said:
I used to show the photo with all the galaxies to my students (8th graders). And I used to tell them the photo was the equivalent of holding out a dime at arms length. Looks like it is even smaller than that.

Either way the "wow" factor is extremely high even for middle school kids that think they know it all. Because I ask them what the photo is of. And they shrug it off and say "stars". Then some of them start looking closer and realize they can't be just stars. And as we talk, the scale starts to slowly register. (As if it can really register completely) Some of them are completely blown away by it. I can just see it on their faces as they gaze at it. And then knowing that the photo is just a tiny slice of the sky it is almost overwhelming. I know I am in complete awe.

So, do aliens exist??
Click to expand...

Think I recently posted that image with the dime reference heh. That's just what I heard or read somewhere.
 
Singlehandedly the most important image ever taken by humans. Thanks for posting, seen it before, but it's always a great sight.
 
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