Deep, deep space

 Photograph: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

 

I am sure you have seen some of the publicity regarding the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  NASA has just released the first batch of photos taken by the JWST and they are astounding.  Their clarity far outstrips anything we have seen before.  The above image is of a cluster of galaxies that number over a thousand.  

Just think, each one of these bright dots is a galaxy comparable to our own Milky Way.  Our galaxy itself contains one hundred billion (100,000,000!) stars.  The galaxies in the photo range in size from some systems that are enormous compared to our home star cluster.  Others are small in comparison.  But, each one is a complex system of stars, planets, comets, asteroids and all the other bodies that make up a galaxy.

This is just a small window into the depths of space.  It covers about 1.5 degrees of our overall view.  The objects in the photo average 4.6 billion light years removed from Earth.  If we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us over four and a half billion years to get there.

What an amazing image.

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.   -- Genesis 1:14-18

 

The Lord God made them all...