The almost everlasting heavens above us.

There is so much information around us these days that it’s easy to forget how incredibly advantaged are those today that wish to learn about everything and anything.  It was just such a meander around the internet that brought me to a website called Science Daily, a wonderful daily digest of top science news items.

And a browse through that web site brought me to this piece on the creation of the very first stars in the universe.

June 1, 2007 — Astronomers removed light from closer and better known galaxies and stars from pictures taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The remaining images are believed to be the first objects in space, 13 billion light years away.

The first stars in our universe are long gone, but their light still shines, giving us a peek at what the universe looked like in its early years.

Astrophysicists believe they’ve spotted a faint glow from stars born at the beginning of time. Harvey Moseley, Ph.D., an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, says, “The reason they’re faint is just because they’re very, very far away, they’re over at the far edge of the universe.”

I don’t know about you but I find this so deeply inspiring – a reminder of the instinctive nature of man to enquire and explore.  And it is this exploratory instinct that will pull us all through from the challenges that we all face today.

Anyway, I’m wandering off the subject!

Do read the piece in full here and then watch the following video from Avi Loeb.

Oh, want to know how far 13 billion light years is?  Brace yourself!

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second or more properly expressed 299,792.458 km/sec.  See here.  (Brilliant website by the way) That is 10 trillion kilometres a year.

So 13 billion light years is simply! 10 trillion multiplied by 13 billion kilometres.  Anyone got a larger calculator?

By Paul Handover