The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, or HUDF, is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24, 2003 through January 16, 2004. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light, looking back approximately 13 billion years, and it will be used to search for galaxies that existed between 400 and 800 million years after the Big Bang.

The HUDF image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. Although most of the targets visible in the Hubble image can also be seen at infrared wavelengths by ground-based telescopes, Hubble is the only instrument which can make observations of these distant targets at visible wavelengths.

Located southwest of Orion in the Southern-Hemisphere constellation Fornax, the image covers 11.0 square arcminutes. This is just one-tenth the diameter of the full moon as viewed from Earth, smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The image is oriented such that the upper left corner points toward north (-46.4°) on the celestial sphere.

CLICK BELOW FOR ENLARGED VERSION - WARNING - 18MB SUPER HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGE


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg

wow unbelievable

What a magnificent photo......thank you so much for sharing it with us.....
Tony

:eek::o:o:o

The part that blows my mind is this ..

smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky

Someone once told me its similar to zooming in on a spot the size of a grain of sand in the sky. Just that tiny spec of sky contains over 10,000 galaxies, not even solar systems... there are no words for how crazy that is.

Someone once told me its similar to zooming in on a spot the size of a grain of sand in the sky. Just that tiny spec of sky contains over 10,000 galaxies, not even solar systems... there are no words for how crazy that is.

Truly to think about.
Awesome photo and I mean AWE some in the old fashioned way :)

This is great n3xtgen.
More info on the edge of the universe is known now than ever before.

There was a program aired on national geographic just a week or two ago, it was graet.
Narrated by Alec Baldwin, It was a virtual trip to the beginning, "the big bang", right up to it, it is a great program.
preview...
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=amat1wRu_cM
That was first part , watch the parts in order, it is good...

Man, that is some cool stuff...

how could there not be life somewhere out there, i think humans are arrogant to even think so, religions have it burned in our heads, i think peope should stop and think,, this picture 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky there gota be something out there somewhere

nicw work bro.

-Great pictures.....God sure can cook....Can't wait to get in space some day.

Beautiful pic! And,just think-what's beyond that? That's what boggles my mind-how far does it go?

Just goes to show how insignificant we really are!

In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced



In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy's most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.

"Orion is a bustling cauldron of activity. This new large-scale Hubble image of the region reveals a treasure-house of beauty and astonishing detail for comprehensive scientific study," said Jennifer Wiseman, NASA's Hubble program scientist.

The crisp image is a tapestry of star formation. It varies from jets fired by stars still embedded in their dust and gas cocoons to disks of material encircling young stars that could be the building blocks of future solar systems.

In a mosaic containing a billion pixels, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys uncovered thousands of stars never seen before in visible light. Some are merely one-hundredth the brightness of previously viewed Orion stars.

Among the stars Hubble spotted for the first time in visible light in Orion were young brown dwarfs and a small population of possible binary brown dwarfs (two brown dwarfs orbiting each other). Brown dwarfs are so-called "failed stars." These cool objects are too small to be ordinary stars, because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way the sun does. Comparing the characteristics of newborn stars and brown dwarfs in their natal environment provides unique information about how they form.

"The wealth of information in this Hubble survey, including seeing stars of all sizes in one dense place, provides an extraordinary opportunity to study star formation," said observation leader Massimo Robberto of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore. "Our goal is to calculate the masses and ages for these young stars, so that we can map their history and get a general scenario of the star formation in that region. We can then sort the stars by mass and age and look for trends."

Orion is a perfect laboratory to study how stars are born, because it is 1,500 light-years away, a relatively short distance within our 100,000 light-year wide galaxy. Astronomers have a clear view into this crowded stellar maternity ward, because massive stars in the center of the nebula have blown out most of the dust and gas in which they formed, carving out a cavity in the dark cloud of gas and dust.

"In this bowl of stars we see the entire formation history of Orion printed into the features of the nebula: arcs, blobs, pillars, and rings of dust that resemble cigar smoke," Robberto said. "Each one tells a story of stellar winds from young stars that impact the environment and the material ejected from other stars. This appears to be a typical star-forming environment. Our sun may have been born 4.5 billion years ago in a cloud like this one."

This extensive study took 105 Hubble orbits to complete. All imaging instruments aboard the telescope were used simultaneously to study Orion. The Advanced Camera mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon

:Huh?:uhhh is there any life out there? lol !!!:coffee::coffee::Huh?:

:Huh?:uhhh is there any life out there? lol !!!:coffee::coffee::Huh?:

of course there is,, dont beleave everything the church tells you,,lol,,

Hey BOSSMAN.....if you don't mind, could you post a link to where you found this....I would like to keep it handy and share with a few other friends and my children....Thanks
Tony

OK...Found it on Google.....Thanks...
Tony

cool image thanks

truly humbling.

thanks, chief.

Nice pic's but did you know that true views of those objects in space do not look like that.Different colors are giving to different range of temperatures of objects in space such as gas clouds.You may not think so but the Sun looks different from seeing it on earth then it does in space.On a clear day on earth the Sun looks yellow in space its white.Those pic's were color highlighted by a computer.

I thought most everybody knew that? If you go to Hubble web page there is a section where they explain how the colors are picked. and they don't do it the same for every image it depends on what they are trying to highlight, otherwise it would all be just shades of gray from black to white.:)

The colors used are based on the temperature range color spectrum just like.The colder a space object is the darker the color it is and the hotter the object is it is lighter in color.

C/P

Taking color pictures with the Hubble Space Telescope is much more complex than taking color pictures with a traditional camera. For one thing, Hubble doesn't use color film — in fact, it doesn't use film at all. Rather, its cameras record light from the universe with special electronic detectors. These detectors produce images of the cosmos not in color, but in shades of black and white.
Finished color images are actually combinations of two or more black-and-white exposures to which color has been added during image processing.
The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye.

UNQUOTE: So you see that all images are not based solely on color temperature, but often by other needs even as mundane as making them look more interesting. There is often a little artistic leeway given to images released for widespread viewing by the masses.:)
Once again I strongly recommend that whenever you find something intriguing , Go that extra step and look into it a little there is so much to be learned just a scratch below the surface.:thmbup:

C/P

Taking color pictures with the Hubble Space Telescope is much more complex than taking color pictures with a traditional camera. For one thing, Hubble doesn't use color film — in fact, it doesn't use film at all. Rather, its cameras record light from the universe with special electronic detectors. These detectors produce images of the cosmos not in color, but in shades of black and white.
Finished color images are actually combinations of two or more black-and-white exposures to which color has been added during image processing.
The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye.

UNQUOTE: So you see that all images are not based solely on color temperature, but often by other needs even as mundane as making them look more interesting. There is often a little artistic leeway given to images released for widespread viewing by the masses.:)
Once again I strongly recommend that whenever you find something intriguing , Go that extra step and look into it a little there is so much to be learned just a scratch below the surface.:thmbup:

Very interesting read aairon, thanks for the information....
Tony