Defining Moments
Looking back in ones life, there are always moments that changed things as we knew it. They are easy to spot with hindsight but sometimes are illusive in the moment. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger is one that was easy to see at the time it occurred. I would guess to most, the moment when one realized that smart phones would change the world was harder to spot. For me, one of those defining moments happens recently with the revealing of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
I'm not a space nerd by any means. I can recite the original 9 planets in order before they got whacked down to 8 but that is about it. I remember the excitement of Hubble only to learn that it was essentially blind. Fortunately some corrective lenses were installed and it got better but I don't remember a defining moment when I was awe struck. I didn't get that awe struck feeling when the first people launched into space post mothballing of the Shuttles occurred nor when the first paying passengers went up. But when I saw the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, I got goose bumps.
I think this is one of those defining moments in our lives that we will all look back at and say changed our world in dramatic fashion. The first picture released showed that even in an area of our sky where nothing existed because the most powerful of scopes saw nothing, was full of thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars. There were galaxies right out of a Dali painting that competed with his melting clocks and ones like above that have five galaxies interacting with each other.
Another picture below, shows cosmic things that are unexplainable with our current knowledge set. Yet more abilities, like the one to detect water vapor in an atmosphere light years away haven't yet been tested. It feels like to me just the tip of the proverbial iceberg and ten years from now we will ponder how all the things we didn't know at the moment in time before those first images were beamed back the million miles here to Earth.
Those are indeed pretty amazing photographs Ed.
ReplyDeleteThey are though I wouldn't be caught saying "photographs" in a NASA setting. Digital images perhaps.
DeleteTo quote Monty Python, after Eric Idle sang "The Galaxy Song" in "The Meaning of Life": "It all makes you feel sort of insignificant."
ReplyDeleteThat it does and we haven't definitively proven that there are other worlds out there with life on them yet.
DeleteI am definitely a space geek (always have been) and I was amazed by these photos from JWST. Absolutely awe inspiring! Funny that you mentioned being able to name the planets. I just said something about that in a new post. -Kelly
ReplyDeletep.s. Did you realize that today's the anniversary of the first moonwalk? 1969.
I did not realize the anniversary or I might have put that in this post as an example of a defining moment.
DeleteAnd as to your reponse to TB.... perhaps I should have said "images" rather than photos. K.
ReplyDeleteDon’t worry. I use the term photograph incorrectly all the time. A sure sign of our ages.
DeleteI’m straining to think what my big moment was
ReplyDeleteProbably a good default answer for most would be your birth.
DeleteMan very early made jars stand up nearly perfect I didn’t know that hook, until as a department head, I observed a lesson by one of the younger teachers
ReplyDeleteI thought you were stroking out as you typed until I googled that phrase. For me it was, "My very elderly mother just saw us near pluto."
DeleteThese are the first images I have seen from The James Webb Space Telescope. Thanks for sharing. I have always tended to look to the earth and the ocean far more than the sky. No way am I a space geek.
ReplyDeleteI am the same way but sometimes the sky thrusts it's presence in my face and this is one of those times.
DeleteThey are so gorgeous as to look fake. I've always been fascinated by space and with these images am even more entranced with what is out there.
ReplyDeleteIf you look on their web site, they actually show you all the layers of each photo individually too.
DeleteYes the images are breathtaking, and one wonders what be next. (Says the guy who swore he would never have a smart phone)!
ReplyDeleteAnother commonality between us. I was definitely the last of my social group to get a smart phone and now I can't imagine not owning one anymore.
DeleteAmazing indeed! But surely the photos can't be so unimpressive that they must be digitally enhanced. Or at least I'd prefer before and after. My online photography has shown my how much, even an amateur, can alter a photo with the help of software.
ReplyDeleteI am someone anti photo enhancement as well. I do know from looking at the various layers, that the one of Jupiter was enhanced by deleting two of the moons. But I don't know about the other ones. Their website does publish all the individual layers of each photo which of course aren't as impressive as the composite but I don't know how much photo enhancement if any went into them.
DeleteOn our local Facebook page, there is a fellow who posts pictures from around town on a nearly daily basis and heavily enhances them to the point that for me, they look like a circus clown after a heavy downpour. Kind of garish and fake. But most people seem to ooh and aah over that sunset that was sooo red despite everything else in the picture being the wrong color.
It is pretty darn cool, Ed. I am glad you were as excited about it as I was. I can't wait to see what else is out there waiting for us.
ReplyDeleteI keep checking daily for new pictures.
DeleteI have been enjoying the photos from the Webb. It is a defining moment, maybe not like 911, but still something important looking back in time across the galaxies.
DeleteI hope I am able to live long enough to see how important the discoveries are.
DeleteThe assassination of JFK. The moonwalk. The death of John Lennon. Apollo 13. The Challenger. Jan 6th. But a lot of them are private paradigm shifts too. The images are stunning.
ReplyDeleteGood examples. I still look at them almost daily.
DeleteWe were mesmerized when we saw those photos and I kept imagining The Enterprise streaking across the sky.
ReplyDeletePerhaps someday Star Trek will be a reality.
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