Running a Hubble handout photo of spangled galaxies from NASA with a caption that says little more than wow! is important enough as news. As a bonus for harried staffers, it also requires nought but an oonch of journalistic effort.
Just such a photo is making the rounds now. It is yet another Hubble Space Telescope pic of distant galaxies. This one is the latest Hubble Ultra Deep Field, a shot built up from several years worth of long exposures of a tiny spot in the Southern Hemisphere sky. A Caltech astronomer presented it to colleagues and reporters in Boston at the American Astronomical Association meeting. It shows about 10,000 galaxies ranging in distance – and thus the era of the universe during which we are seeing them – as have others before. This piece of scientifically-important eye candy is augmented by including the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. The eye cannot see that, so NASA's photo team artificially colored it as a bright blue to go along with the exaggerated colors assigned to the optical (greens) and infrared (reds). The UV is strongest – due to Doppler shifts – from hot, star-forming regions ranging in distance between 5 and 10 billion light years. It adds significantly to earlier versions in both visual impact and astrophysical info. What an astounding photo project. It will be on posters if it is not already. While the colors are phony, they do carry meaning. They also allowed NASA's news crew to label this the most colorful view of the universe yet. It got plenty of pickup.
Most of the news's audience likely saw the short version of the news, such as this fat captioned version as a newspaper named after a nearby star:
- Toronto Sun : NASA releases Hubble's 'most colourful view of universe' ; Caption in its entirety: This image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope is being dubbed by NASA as “the most comprehensive picture ever assembled of the evolving universe — and one of the most colourful." The photo was released by the space agency on Tuesday and is part of its Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field project.The image is a composite of separate exposures taken in 2003 to 2012 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3, containing approximately 10,000 galaxies.
Which only tells the readers that this is a pretty picture of a slew of galaxies. This is the version I first saw this morning. What was striking this time as well as when looking at earlier versions is how few, distinct stars are in the picture, given away by the diffraction spikes arrayed around them. I got to wondering which direction the Hubble looked to get a view with such a thin smattering of intervening stars of our own Milky Way. I soon enough found that the field is in the direction, away from the galactic plane, of a constellation called Fornax in the southern sky. The image above, by the way, is a snip from the whole field, a hi-def version of which is linked in Grist below.
One prefers that news reports had included how tiny is the spot in the sky that contains all this splendor. Its area is well under 1% of the full moon's expanse. The vista can be compared to what one would see by staring from Earth through a window as big and as distant as a lunar crater. I found that apparent size on Wikipedia, so take it with a small grain of salt. If anybody, incidentally, who reads that Wiki and examines the prominent diagram of the Hubble's orbit of Earth and the direction it stared for this shot can explain how the target, in Fornax, can be in the southern sky but look in this graphic like it's to the north you are doing better than I. It gives me projection blindness. Anyway … the presumption that a similar congregation of galaxies stretching back close to the big bang would be seen with a look at any similarly tiny spot in any direction one chooses is almost impossible to comprehend. Wiki says the photo represents just one part in 13 million of the whole sky. One wonders when, if ever, all the sky not obscured by the Milky Way will be similarly examined and how many lifetimes it would take one person to scroll-stroll through it all.
Several outlets did try to give the reader more than a visual thrill.
- Universe Today – Shannon Hall: The New and Improved Hubble Ultra Deep Field ; Hall smartly includes an older version of the ultra deep field, with less of the spectrum represented, to compare with the new one.
- Slate / Bad Astronomy – Phil Plait: Hubble's Colorful Candy-Striped Universe ; Plait even explains why a few galaxies have faint diffraction spikes, like stars do so prominently. It has to do with bright nuclei – probably monster black holes feeding on gas and unlucky stars. He also explains the code behind the colors.
- LA Times – Deborah Netburn: Hubble peers deep into the univese, reveals teenage galaxies ; Good overview – too bad Netburn hadn't room, along with many other reporters apparently, to explain what the hues mean.
- NBC News – Alan Boyle: Hubble Team Unveils Telescope's MostColorful Cosmic View ;
- Discovery News – Irene Klotz: Hubble Adds Ultraviolet to Epic Ultra-Deep Cosmic View ;
- Tech News – James Maynard: Hubble spies candy-colored universe, benefits boffins ; Ah, boffins. A Brit news outlet? Says here it's based in NY City.
- Daily Mail (UK) Leon Watson: Who knew space was so colourful? ;
- Space.com – Miriam Kramer: Colorful Hubble Telescope Image Is Best-Ever View of Universe's Evolution ; Datelined Boston. Kramer was there and has the distinct quotes to prove it. She includes a word on Hubble's scheduled successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, and that while it has many advantages over the Hubble they do not include ability to gather UV images. Includes a video (ESA?) that zooms into the image.
Grist for the Mill: NASA – HST Press Release/PUb. Info ; NASA Hi-Def version; ESA Press Release ; Arizona State University Press Release ;
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