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You Are Here (On Earth)

Posted by timothy on from the human-chauvinist dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "NY Times today has an essay about a map of the entire universe produced by two Princeton astronomers using a variety of data including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its view begins with the Earth at the bottom and extends back almost to the Big Bang at the top, including such objects as the Sloan Great Wall, 1.37 billion light-years long. The map can be found here."

3 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bad joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is no such thing as a good lie.

    There is, however, such a thing as a good model, as any true scientist will tell you. Obviously, the only perfect model of the universe is the universe itself; however, the derivation of useful models which are by design imperfect is absolutely at the heart of science.

  2. Re:Bad joke. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What are you talking about?

    This is a GREAT model/map for teaching. the general population sit's ther eand simply drools when they see a log chart so this is obviousally not for general public consumption but for scientists and students to use to get a better grasp on spatial locations from earth center at that given point in time.

    pan this all you want, but I was able to teach my child some very important facts about our solar system with this chart. Her astronomical sciences teacher at her middle school was not able to explain a couple of the topics as clearly as this chart/map does.

    This is a great tool, if you are not able to understand it's usefulness that is your loss.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Location and orbit of WMAP by Morgaine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    LOL, that post made the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) sound like a secretive spy satellite. :-)

    Actually, WMAP is a hugely successful astronomical microwave observatory which sits at Earth's second Lagrange Point (L2). L2 is 1.5 million kilometers on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. This informative page shows the location and how the probe got there very clearly.

    The WMAP was launched in June of 2001 and has made a map of the temperature fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation with much higher resolution, sensitivity, and accuracy than its predecessor, COBE. It has been a huge success.

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra