I often smile or laugh out loud when I hear this expression.

But things are different this time.

With the recent release of the final reports, a telescope in South America ended its useful life in 2022. The telescope originated in Vancouver—yes, Vancouver—where this 6-meter telescope was assembled for its trial run before being reassembled in Chile to collect cosmic data beginning in 2007.

It has been collecting data about the universe’s origin, 14 billion years ago. Now, that’s big, even for time measurements.

Now, go 380,000 years after the Big Bang to when the universe was slowly solidifying into something we might begin to recognize, with gravity’s help, as stars. This is when we first started to see the light from this gigantic phenomenon.

To make research even more difficult, these galaxies are receding from our galaxy and each other. Our findings are very close to what we predicted but not quite. There is just enough difference to maintain our curiosity. Why this difference?

Some of the difficulties with the accuracy of our measurement include the most obvious of agreed-upon facts—we are on Earth. The light waves hitting the telescope can be impacted by the light waves emitted by the Earth. Also, the impact of water vapour in the atmosphere, which can be minimized by clever analysis, still can cause unknown distortions.

But being based on Earth has advantages. The equipment can be easily upgraded as technology improves. The camera system was upgraded 3 times before being decommissioned in 2022.

I’ll close this Blog with a nod to Albert Einstein, who said, “The fact the universe is comprehensible at all is a miracle.”

Please give this a bit of a think. Is it worth spending money to look so far back into galaxies to gather information that is billions of years out of date?

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment below or send me an email with your bit of a think.

My thanks for inspiring this Blog go to the Edmonton Journal.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

If you enjoyed The Blog, please share it with others. Thanks.

And my thanks to St. Albert’s 50+ Activity Centre for making this Blog possible.

Volunteer Blogger

glenn.walmsley@icloud.com