what could be.

A while ago, a couple of images were taken that changed the way we think of the universe. We took the Hubble Telescope and picked a tiny point of space (and I mean TINY), and took a photograph. For no scientific reason - we just wanted to know what was there. Because we were curious. We pointed a telescope at a spot we thought was empty, and what we got was astounding.

The Hubble Deep Field:


Each one of these tiny points and oblong swirly bits is an individual galaxy. Each one contains billions of stars, and each of those stars could support several planets. The Ultra Deep Field contains even more:

I would encourage you to click on these images, and take a look at them in a higher resolution. Look at them for a long time. Let the magnitude of each image sink in. It's impossible, of course, for us to grasp the full importance of these photographs. But maybe we can get a hint of just how vast our universe is, and how far we have to go.

Watch this in full screen if you can: