Friday 20 March 2015

The Appliance Of Science

The Hubble telescope is one of the great science projects mankind has produced ... the images and science its churned out, from confirming the existence of black-holes at the centre of the universe, to helping to confirm the exact age of the Universe, its been a winner (apart from one Oops, when it was launched with a lens flaw ~ later corrected by the shuttle crews), almost from day one.

And it's still performing admirably ever since its last service and overhaul (last in every sense, because its no longer possible to fix issues now that the space shuttles have ceased), and with only one of its 6 vital gyroscopes showing signs of wear and tear.

The Butterfly Nebula

In the near future, its hoped that for a few years at least, it will be able to team up with its eventual replacement, the James Webb scope, and perform some very special science, by each viewing the same objects, but from slightly different perspectives, utilising the gravitational lensing effects created by distant galaxies, to see ever further back in time.

While there will always be the scientific luddites, who believe that we should spend every penny to feed the poor, its also the same sort of nonsense thinking that would have kept us in the caves. These sort of 'thinkers' would have punished the very first man who invented something 'useless' called fire instead of going out hunting or scavenging. Whomever the 'Ugg' was who came up with making fire, he would surely now be beaten to death by the 'greens', probably as a criminal environmental polluter who was burning fossil fuels and creating the first carbon emissions.

Eagle Nebula - aka the "Pillars of Creation".

Having any sort of debate with these sort of people is impossible, because they are resistant to logic ... For instance the whole of the Hubble costs, from development to the last rebuild, would be equal to about 10p (given just once to every UN officially defined poor person in the world) .... barely a cup of rice. The poor can never be got rid of ....  they have always been with us and probably always will be.

We can't allow this stupidity to impoverish our minds and our thoughts ... if there is any hope for mankind, it is almost certainly off the planet which we are so busily abusing. It is the stars (or planets to be technical), or extinction for this curious ape descendent.

The Sombrero Galaxy (M104)

So enough of the guff .... let us celebrate this marvellous human achievement, and just look at some of the glorious images it has sent back to those of us with our heads in the skies, even if our feet are still in the mud.

2 comments:

  1. Great photos!
    How much did Sky pay for the football? There's a waste of money!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's lots of waste of money in most Town Halls .... they are great photo's

      Delete

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.