Thursday, December 01, 2005

Far Away and Very Very Big



You're looking at the most detailed picture of the Crab Nebula ever created. Thanks to our friends at Hubble (and Ball Aerospace).

Update: Here's a catalogue of Hubble imagery I just serendipitously came across thanks to the new Stumble plugin available in the brand new Firefox 1.5 browser which just came out Tuesday (why Firefox 1.5 is really that good). Wow. I love the Internet. (Cool astronomy/Firefox 1.5 demo showing how the moon got into orbit.) (Ok, I'll stop, I'll stop.)

13 comments:

citizen_us said...

Woooooohoooooo. That is friggin spectacular!

buddy larsen said...

what a brilliant, brilliant success Hubble has been, after one of the least auspicious beginnings ever.

Unknown said...

That is so beautiful. No wonder people believe in God.

buddy larsen said...

Terrye--right click on these, 'save' in 'pictures', then go there and reopen in fax viewer or paint--and zoom-'em way up...TOO much....

buddy larsen said...

even better, just open 'em to the websites' enlargements--THEN do the save/zoom thing. i may have to break out the bong.

buddy larsen said...

Oops...heh heh....

buddy larsen said...

"Open the pod-bay door, Hal. OPEN the pod-bay door, HAL!"

buddy larsen said...

yep...the urban legend is that someone transposed two digits with the thousands used to polish out the mirror concavity, and only found the error once it was in orbit. But somehow they fixed it. Those mirror polishers must've had to buy every ladder at Home Depot.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Ball Aerospace fixed the Hubble. And built most of its instruments. That's why they got the link.

buddy larsen said...

...sheer wizardry. I might as well go attack a triceratops.

Luther said...

MHA
I like the idea of Firefox. Tabs are cool. But, as I just discovered, no one has ported a spell checker (such as ieSpell) (that works) as yet. When that happens I will try again. I would be way too embarrassed to comment without one ;-)

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Luther,

Could this be what you need?

Luther said...

Thanks MHA, I'll see how that works out.