Family portrait of the stars

Dave BC WA — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:59:28 GMT

Just a question,
Are you saying the picture we’re looking at is basically eight thousand miles across and 6.5 light years away?

[ALAN ADDS: No, it's 6,500 light-years away, and the apparent area of the sky taken in by W5 is roughly equivalent to four full moons, or about a degree wide. W5 is an estimated 50 to 75 light-years across. The reference to the full moon's area relates to angular diameter rather than the actual diameter if you were to take a ruler. Sorry about any confusion over that.]

Family portrait of the stars

Ryan, Rochester NY — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:36:00 GMT

A truly breathtaking picture. I find it hard to wrap my mind around the shear size of these gas clouds. We have so much left to discover out there. What are we waiting for. Fund your local researcher.

Family portrait of the stars

Eric, Salinas, CA — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:01:10 GMT

What a majestic view! Thanks for showing us an excellent example of taxpayer money well spent! We are truly fortunate to be living in the Golden Age of Astronomy and to witness these marvelous discoveries which expand our knowledge of the universe and how it works.

Family portrait of the stars

Nealon L. Dumas,Homosassa,Florida — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:45:11 GMT

Why can't sun light be DARK MATTER ? Part of sun light is photon,it can pass through a solid and still shine such as glass,but it still passes throught a piece black glass and not shine,but it still there. You can not see it or feel it but it there.This has been going on since the begining,and still go on today.their must be a massive build up and I belive this is dark matter.I would like some feed back on this. Thank you Nealon
T

Family portrait of the stars

Dave BC WA — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:06:56 GMT

My mistake. I caught the 6.5 error about three seconds too late. Not sure why the four moon thing didn’t click in until I read your comments. It seems pretty clear after I re-read it.
Thanks

Family portrait of the stars

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:19:25 GMT

Clearly awesome and clearly indicating there is no hand of God making those stars.

Family portrait of the stars

Imsu Kim, Korean. — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:36:26 GMT

The picture shows the process that ENERGY BE CONVERTED
INTO MASS? (E=mC2)

Family portrait of the stars

Ant, NJ — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:03:43 GMT

Are prints/posters of these images for sale?

Family portrait of the stars

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:10:54 GMT

Nealon,
Dark matter is way mysterious. Many doubt there is such a thing. It's definition can range quite a bit,too. Regular matter that we can't see is pretty well accepted by all as dark matter, solar wind from billions and billions of stars, etc. I'm not sure about light. Photons are effected by gravity but I don't know that they exert a gravitational effect. Who really knows what all comes out of a star. There could be all kinds of stuff that we just don't know how to detect yet. If the Higgs boson is the part of matter that contributes to mass then dark matter may just be an accumulation of Higgs bosons that didn't have enough other elemental particles to form matter. The sugar that's left over after you've made all the cake batter you can make. I'm pretty sure that the stuff that streams from all stars, including ours, contributes to dark matter. Whether or not that stuff includes light I can't say. It's a gravity thing and let me be the first to say, I don't understand gravity.

Family portrait of the stars

Eric, Salinas, CA — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:45:45 GMT

Why can't sun light be DARK MATTER

Nealon,
Sunlight can't be dark matter because photons do not have mass. They certainly do exhibit some of the characteristics of dark matter and after over 13 billion years there sure should be a lot of them. They travel at the speed of light because they have no mass. I think the photons would be more likely to be the dark energy the scientists talk about but once again they have no mass so when they bump into things they really don't affect those solid objects. A really interesting question as to what exactly is dark matter and dark energy since those two things compromise the vast majority of the universe and we can see their effects even though we can't see them directly. Hopefully soon the scientists will be able to discover exactly what dark matter and dark energy consist of. Meanwhile it sure is fun trying to figure it out.

Family portrait of the stars

George Abdallah, Beirut, Lebanon — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:00:56 GMT

it is a wonder..all things in basic like molecules and atomes..seems simple..but what GOD create is marvelous..coz putting all effects and nature makes what we saw on this..well give us always ur news about this invisibles & keep up the very good work..thanks

Family portrait of the stars

Carl, Orange CA — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:02:21 GMT

If Dark energy turns out to be related to light energy, or some undetected radiant frequency of a star, then gravity could also be formulated into the equation since light and gravity often show up at the same place and same time. Perhaps similar to the poles on a magnet.

Family portrait of the stars

Johnny Bodean Appleton, Cowcreek, Kentucky — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:57:30 GMT

Hot damn! That picture just fries my taters! I was kinda hopin for a picture of Angelina Jolie, though, when I read, "Family Portrait of the Stars." Ah, heck. Them scientists make some pretty nice pictures with their space telescopes, too. I guess, in a sense, it is kinda like our own family portraits, though, ain't it? We is all just stardust, anyhow, ain't we?

Family portrait of the stars

Starchild, San Diego, California — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:28:26 GMT

Dude, far out! That like totally takes me back to the 60's. I am like totally having a major LSD flashback right now. Whoa, dude! I am in like totally harmonious synchronicity with the music of the spheres now. Groovy! Oneness with the cosmos! Whooeee! Here I go!