To grasp a billion stars

[MindMover]

There are times — rare, but they happen — when I have a difficult time describing the enormity of something. Something so big, so overwhelming, that words simply cannot suffice.

The basic story is: Using the VISTA telescope in Chile and the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have made an incredibly detailed map of the sky in infrared. This map will help understand our own galaxy, more distant galaxies, quasars, nebulae, and much more.

But what do I mean by "incredibly detailed"?

This is where words get hard. So hang on tight; let me show you instead.

Here’s a section of the survey they made, showing the star-forming region G305, an enormous cloud of gas about 12,000 light years away which is busily birthing tens of thousands of stars:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/04/04/to-grasp-a-billion-stars/?

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They said the Natives could not see Columbus as he approached in there ships......

[Loudly]

1. Here is a slight correction I would make to the article.

Where it refers to the region as a place "which is busily birthing tens of thousands of stars."

It should be noted that this should read "which WAS busily birthing tens of thousands of stars."

The light reaching those telescopes is 12,000 years old.

To find out what's going on there now, we need to wait another 12,000 years.

[MindMover]

2. Yer right, assumption can get you into a galaxy of hurt.....

[opiate69]

3. correction of a correction.....

stars typically take an extremely long time to form. Far longer than 12,000 years. In fact, a star with comparable mass as our sun will take around 50 million years to evolve from gas cloud to proto-star to nuclear fusion, so chances are the article's wording is still correct.

[MLKJrInspired]

4. Of all our "pure science" money spending, space exploration and investigation is my favorite

It supports invention of new technology and creates jobs, but just importantly, it's inspirational. We're looking out beyond ourselves.