CelticBear’s Musings

Phil Plait of BadAstronomy has a new very interesting entry:
Dark matter and large scale structure.

It describes some fascinating finds from the COSMOS program (“Cosmological Evolution Survey designed to probe the formation and evolution of galaxies as a function of cosmic time”) regarding the mapping of swaths of the sky. It includes a link to an absolutely fascinating tool that allows you to zoom in on galaxies and stellar bodies:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/01/image/j/format/zoom/

It’s so amazing! Seeing scores and scores of galaxies, each one with millions of stars, each star with probably several planets and many moons…. we’re such a little speck of dust in this awesomely huge universe. We’re just a grain of sand on a giant beach of countless sand! It’s so humbling! Realizing cosmically we’re nothing! Nothing! But that makes life on this planet so precious! We think we’re so important, that we’re the end-all be-all of existence. Not to get too negative, but religious arrogance has led us to think we’re the center of the universe (first literally, then figuratively once the former was proven false,) and has made us uncaring about just how precious life on the planet is. When you see, realize, how rare life is in the vast universe (as far as we know so far,) you should want to value it more.

Also on that BA blog posting is information about dark matter (see Interesting Science Blog Day: Dark Matter and Supernova) which has been theorized for some time now. Mathematically predicted in detail for years. Then with the help of programs like COSMOS, “visibly” proven! It’s incredible!

Science so freakin’ rocks!