There is so much disunity in the world now, but I’ve been captivated by the (so far) successful unboxing and deployment of the Webb telescope–a large group of people worked together across the world to create and launch this thing, despite delays and risks. One example, from this ArsTechnica article:
The Ariane 5 program also selected the best components for Webb based upon pre-flight testing. For example, for the Webb-designated rocket, the program used a main engine that had been especially precise during testing. “It was one of the best Vulcain engines that we’ve ever built,” Albat said. “It has very precise performance. It would have been criminal not to do it.”
The same unified focus was evident in the Apollo launch era.
And then there’s the intrinsic big-picture nature of astronomy. The Hubble captured some inspiring images, and this infrared telescope is an attempt to probe further back in time via red-shifted light. We see the patterns of birth, life, decay and death in our familiar seasons and lifecycles, with matter disintegrated and reconstituted into new life. Now we are trying to look at the lifecycle of this universe.
One of the most popular images from the Hubble was the Eagle Nebula, a section called “the pillars of creation” because it was a star nursery which happened to look like pillars from our vantage point on earth. Here’s the original image, and here’s one that penetrates through the gas shrouding the area.
If this blog had a nice visual theme, one of those pictures was going to be my choice for a splash page or background image.