Topic: Hubble is a cyclops

[sam]

A few days ago the following headline on the New York Times website caught my eye: Seeing What the Hubble Sees, in Imax and 3-D. There are two reasons this headline is worthy of note. First, it is amazing that an IMAX movie about the Hubble Space Telescope exists at all, and is worth mentioning on the front (web)page of the NYT. NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-EarthriseHubble is a part of the popular imagination, and may be the object most closely tied with Science in the eyes of the general public (even more than the LHC). Furthermore, it is absolutely astounding that NASA launched hundreds of kilos of camera equipment and film into orbit, and spent valuable astronaut time (both on the ground and in space) to pull off the filming. I would claim one of the lasting legacies of the Apollo missions to the Moon are the photographs, and in particular Earthrise. That single photograph of our home as a small blue marble against the vastness of space put our planet into proper perspective for the very first time. NASA is well aware that part of its mission is to light up the public imagination, getting us to peer past our limited horizons, and out into the vast Universe beyond. This film is part of that tradition.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/04/13/hubble-is-a-cyclops/

[Clive]

What a fascinating article.  Good find.