In September of 2003 the Hubble space telescope was pointed at a tiny, empty, area of the sky for 11 days. The result is one of the most famous astronomical images of our time: the Hubble ultra deep field. Those dots aren’t stars, each one is an entire galaxy, 10 thousand of them, each containing a hundred billion stars and all of that, in just 1 square millimeter of sky, a pinhead held at arms length. Try to hold these numbers in your mind and then spread that tiny patch out, over the full 360 degree curve of the sky and surely, surely we are beginning to get a sense of what infinity might look like. What infinity might feel like.
The universe has been churning dust into things and back into dust for something like 13.8 billion years and this is what that looks like. This is the form it takes. Stare at it. Take it in. Let it wash over you. You are part of that process. You are that process. When you turn your eyes skyward you are literally the universe observing itself. Yes there is much we don’t know. Yes there is much about which we are mistaken or confused. But thanks to instruments like Hubble we are far from blind and these lessons are gifts that can change your life because its only when you stare at that data, those images, and try to hold the universe in your mind, even if just for a moment that you can place your existence within its proper context.
