SUMMARY: Astronomers this week released some new and spectacular pictures taken by the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. A crew of astronauts spent 13 days in orbit in May replacing and rebuilding vital components of the telescope. "This is truly Hubble's new beginning," Edward Weiler, an administrator for science at NASA said."I'm in awe of the human ingenuity that could conceive of such a thing and then make it happen," said K. Megan McArthur, an astronaut who flew on the repair mission. Among the images taken was one of gas flying from a dying star that look like a butterfly (picture from the Hubble Web site) and another of a galaxy 10 billion light-years away which had been stretched into a "dragon" shape. Astronomers believe the pictures can provide them with details of galaxies that existed "before the Milky Way was born."
Dr. Weiler believes the telescope is now in the best shape of its 19-year life in orbit and has surpassed the ambitions of its founder. It could last at least another five years. After being launched from a space shuttle in 1990, the telescope became a national joke when it was discovered that its primary mirror had been polished to the wrong shape. This defect was repaired in 1993 when an astronaut crew installed corrective optics. Four more visits by astronauts have made the telescope increasingly more powerful.
Astronauts who had been on the May repair mission were awed by the new pictures. Michael J. Masimino, who made two spacewalks, said "Thank God we didn't break it."
To view more of the images, click on this link to THE HUBBLE WEB SITE.
To read the entire article, click on this link to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
COMMENT: The astronauts who risked their lives and the other specialists who designed and directed the repair missions are to be commended for making these pictures possible. Yet, I find it somewhat ironic, though not surprising, that astronaut McArthur would compliment humans for their work but had nary a word to say about the Designer who put the galaxies and other space objects into the nighttime sky in the first place. On the other hand, a Hubble senior scientist was quoted in the Associated Press report in the local newspaper as saying, "What I see is the grandeur of creation, however it got there."
When we study these amazing pictures we can think of many more examples of God's love of beauty--flowers, butterflies, snowflakes, etc. As fantastic as these beautiful creatures are, they are just a taste of the beauty that awaits us in the heavenly world He has prepared for all believers. Stars collapse, flowers wilt, snowflakes melt, but the beauties we will experience in heaven will last forever. If you have not confessed your sins to the Creator and come to faith in Jesus Christ as your one and only Savior, what's stopping you?
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
Where can people find information on how to observe the International Space Station in the sky?A NASA Web site, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html, explains when people in various parts of the world and the nation should look skyward to see the ISS flying by overhead. The ISS will appear as a very bright star moving fairly rapidly across the sky.
Source: NASA
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