The Hubble Space Telescope captured galaxy NGC 1317, showcasing young stars, cold gas clouds, and cosmic companions. It’s part of a joint Hubble-ALMA survey revealing how galaxies evolve and stars form.
In this image the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope peers into the spiral galaxy NGC 1317 in the constellation Fornax, more than 50 million light-years from Earth. This galaxy is one of a pair, but NGC 1317’s rowdy larger neighbor NGC 1316 lies outside Hubble’s field of view. Despite the absence here of its neighboring galaxy, NGC 1317 is accompanied in this image by two objects from very different parts of the Universe. The bright point ringed with a criss-cross pattern is a star from our own galaxy surrounded by diffraction spikes, whereas the redder elongated smudge is a distant galaxy lying far beyond NGC 1317.
The data presented in this image are from a vast observing campaign of hundreds of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Combined with data from the ALMA array in the Atacama desert, these observations help astronomers chart the connections between vast clouds of cold gas and the fiercely hot young stars that form within them. ALMA’s unparalleled sensitivity at long wavelengths identified vast reservoirs of cold gas throughout the local Universe, and Hubble’s sharp vision pinpointed clusters of young stars, as well as measuring their ages and masses.
Often the most exciting astronomical discoveries require this kind of telescope teamwork, with cutting-edge facilities working together and providing astronomers with information across the electromagnetic spectrum. The same applies to future telescopes, with Hubble’s observations laying the groundwork for future science with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
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6 Comments
Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
JUST BECAUSE SCIENCE CAN EXPLAIN how an airplane works doesn’t mean that no one designed or made the airplane. And just because science can explain how life or the universe works doesn’t mean there was no Designer and Maker behind them.
Natural laws may explain how the order in the universe works and operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells from raw materials such as amino acids and other chemicals, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.
WHAT IS SCIENCE? Science simply is knowledge based on observation. No human observed the universe coming by chance or by design, by creation or by evolution. These are positions of faith. The issue is which faith the scientific evidence best supports.
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE CANNOT BE ETERNAL because it could not have sustained itself eternally due to the law of entropy (increasing and irreversible net energy decay, even in an open system). Even a hypothetical oscillating universe could not continue to oscillate eternally! Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity shows that space, matter, and time all are physical and all had a beginning. Space even produces particles because it’s actually something, not nothing. What about the Higgs boson (the so-called “God Particle”)? The Higgs boson, even if it existed, would not have created mass from nothing, but rather it would have converted energy into mass. Einstein showed that all matter is some form of energy. Even time had a beginning! Time is not eternal.
The law of entropy doesn’t allow the universe to be eternal. If the universe were eternal, everything, including time (which modern science has shown is as physical as mass and space), would have become totally entropied by now and the entire universe would have ended in a uniform heat death a long, long time ago. The fact that this hasn’t happened already is powerful evidence for a beginning to the universe.
Popular atheistic scientist Stephen Hawking admits that the universe had a beginning and came from nothing but he believes that nothing became something by a natural process yet to be discovered. That’s not rational thinking at all, and it also would be making the effect greater than its cause to say that nothing created something. The beginning had to be of supernatural origin because science teaches us from the First Law of Thermodynamics that natural laws and processes do not have the ability to bring something into existence from nothing.
The supernatural origin of the universe cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence and power for the origin and order of the universe. Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.
The disorder in the universe can be explained because of chance and random processes, but the order can be explained only because of intelligence and design.
Gravity may explain how the order found in the precise and orderly courses of thousands of billions of stars is maintained, but gravity cannot explain the origin of that order.
Some evolutionary astronomers believe that trillions of stars crashed into each other leaving surviving stars to find precise orderly orbits in space. Not only is this irrational, but if there was such a mass collision of stars then there would be a super mass residue of gas clouds in space to support this hypothesis. The present level of residue of gas clouds in space doesn’t support the magnitude of star deaths required for such a hypothesis. And, as already stated, the origin of stars cannot be explained by the Big Bang because of the reasons mentioned above. It’s one thing to say that stars may decay and die into random gas clouds, but it is totally different to say that gas clouds form into stars.
Even the father of Chaos theory admitted that the “mechanisms” existing in the non-living world allow for only very rudimentary levels of order to arise spontaneously (by chance), but not the kind or level of order we find in the structures of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Yes, individual amino acids have been shown to come into existence by chance but not protein molecules which require that the various amino acids be in a precise sequence just like the letters found in a sentence.
Some things don’t need experiment or scientific proof. In law there is a dictum called prima facie evidence. It means “evidence that speaks for itself.”
An example of a true prima facie would be if you discovered an elaborate sand castle on the beach. You don’t have to experiment to know that it came by design and not by the chance forces of wind and water.
If you discovered a romantic letter or message written in the sand, you don’t have to experiment to know that it was by design and not because a stick randomly carried by wind put it there. You naturally assume that an intelligent and rational being was responsible.
It’s interesting that Carl Sagan would have acknowledged sequential radio signals in space as evidence of intelligent life sending them, but he wouldn’t acknowledge the sequential structure of molecules in DNA (the genetic code) as evidence of an intelligent Cause. Read my popular Internet article, HOW DID MY DNA MAKE ME.
I encourage all to read my popular Internet articles:
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION
HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Visit my latest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION (This site answers many arguments, both old and new, that have been used by evolutionists to support their theory)
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I’ve been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who in The East” for my writings on religion and science.
Mr. Babu Ranganathan I think you’re in delusional state and disturbed mentally on Monday morning. You must understand that this is a topic about Hubble telescopes deep field image not God related topic. Try to comment with some common sense not like dump or you must be disturbed mentally believing God sent you as a messenger!!! I believe you must be a converted person who believes everything blindly so this is not the place for delusional people it’s a place for brain users. Hope you’ll use your brain in the future…
@Babu G. Ranganathan
You hit your head or something?
There are other “forums” to speak about your godly delusions…
This is a science mag here… not exactly a sub-bible theory club thank you…
i am quoting you here “Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.”
Slow down there cowboy, you can’t brush off that very valid question with an ‘obviously’. Explaining a mystery with another mystery doesn’t get anyone closer to the truth.
Whatever existed before the Big Bang is unknown as of right now and it may never be known but there was something. There has always been something. While our something is incredibly difficult to grasp mentally the idea of ‘true nothing’ is even more impossible.
Even if there is this Universe creator God, at best, it is a deadbeat dad God who created everything and hasn’t been seen for 13 billion years. There are billions of galaxies with trillions of stars and planets.
This was all created for a Jewish zombie 2000 years ago? Because of the fruit eating crimes of the 1st rib woman who talked to a snake? These gods also had a fetish for human virgins? Sounds more like silly human mythology, obviously.
You sound like the religious folks that claim, with a straight face God always answers prayers. In one of 3 ways, Yes, No or Not Yet. Well is there any other possibility? Yes, No or Not yet, covers every possible out come. You will win the lottery if you buy every possible lottery ticket.
If your God didn’t need an obvious creator God, therefore your God is an Atheist. Then it is good enough for me too.
…and I thought my question was going to be off topic. When looking at this striking hubble photograph of the bar spiral galaxy. I wondered about the missing mass in the universe question. Wondering if all the non-illuminated spaces in the universe are truly empty or if there is some portion of the matter disguised this way. The Hubble bar spiral galaxy looks young and appears to be pulling in matter from the inter-galactic medium. The standard model material becoming illuminated when entering the galaxy sphere of influence (gravity, magnetic, galactic inflow/outflow to/from the inter-galactic medium).
Hello B.G.R.,
Effective meditation makes the empirical, duplicate able thus scientific discovery that Lucidity evokes and vivifies all phenomena, including the discoverer (= nondualism). Any scientist could make this discovery and then ponder it’s implications for the orthodox, materialist view of the sciences. But do they have the courage to challenge their preconceptions? In fact, the scientist has the best training to make this discovery because of his or her passion for enquiry and honesty in the face of the facts.
Chris