The Universe

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Acknowledgment: J. Blakeslee (JHU) and R. Thompson (University of Arizona)

I am like a kid in a candy store! I visited the Hubble gallery website Look at this picture! It's the universe... well, a portion of the universe as seen from the Hubble telescope, but look at it! Each one of those globs or spiraling swirls is a galaxy! 

Each one is a single galaxy! Now there is a word that starts with G I could have added to the G-word assignment back in November.

You can download it with even finer resolution, up to 4265 x 3513 pixels for high quality prints, or download to your monitor, like for wallpaper... and there are many more pictures to choose from. If you like pictures of the cosmos, this is the place to go!

One of my favorite Hubble photos is the Pillars of Creation in a Star-Forming Region. Even more spectacular is the Stellar Spire in the Eagle Nebula. Absolutely breathtaking!

After you have visited these sites to see up close what you never paid much attention to because they're so far away, there's a place that explains how color is added to the Hubble photos to make them even more vibrant than what we'd see if we were in a space vehicle observing it in person.

As the following quote from "The Meaning of Color in Hubble Images" explains: The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye.

If you need photos of the planets in our solar system for your classroom, or just because you are a fan of cosmic matter, there is a collection of the most remarkable images available to anyone who has access to the internet. You don't even have to spend another dime on anything (well, you will need photo quality paper to print on)... just download and print them yourself!!  Can it be any easier?

So a big thank you to By The Way blogger, John Scalzi, for the photo (as seen above) he inserted onto his page which reminded me of one of my favorite websites. Until I saw it, I had not thought to add my favorite cosmos picture, but as I mentioned earlier, I'm learning some new tricks as I navigate around this place. It's like he said in one of his earlier entries in 2003:

Hopefully something I write about will encourage you to write in your own AOL Journal, or to create your own Journal to take part in the conversation.

This is exactly what I'm doing. I like my new toy.