Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Hubble

We spent part of the day on New Year's Eve at the Science Museum and the highlight for me was watching the I-Max movie Hubble.

I was awed by the science, creativity, time, facilities, staff, expertise...how much goes into planning and sending an object into space so it can send images back to us to show us what's out there and answer some burning questions humanity has been asking for centuries.

Watching the astronauts repair Hubble was fascinating. One crew member of the last mission to repair Hubble says it is "like performing brain surgery with oven mitts."

But most fascinating were the images Hubble has captured over the last 10 years.

Like this one.  A butterfly thing in space that I wish I could remember more about, but was too caught up in its beauty to pay attention to the narration.
I was taken into "the nursery", a cluster of young stars in the middle of some galaxy with more vibrant color than I can see in the rainbow. I was shown the small "village" our galaxy dwells in compared to the "bright lights of the city" of galaxies light years beyond. This and more was amazing. I think I caught my jaw dropping a few times and I couldn't help but whisper to Maddie over and over, "Isn't this cool?"

On the way out of the theater her comment was, "I wish we had a screen like this at home."

I knew there would be a day when the 46-inch LED Samsung TV would be not good enough. I just thought that moment would come much much later.

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