If you don’t know anything about astronomy YouTube is an amazing resource.

I took my first astronomy course in college, in the late 1990’s. The findings from the Hubble space telescope were just coming in at that time, check this out:

Countless galaxies, each containing billions of stars…. these images from the Hubble rocked the astronomy world, giving scientists a glimpse of the universe that wasn’t possible from any earthbound observatory.

Space telescopes sit in orbit, with no interference from our atmosphere, no light pollution to contend with, just the dark cold of space to peer into. The Hubble was the first space telescope, but it won’t be the last.

Astronomy is about to take another huge leap forward with the launch of the James Webb space telescope in October of 2018:

https://jwst.nasa.gov/about.html

There is no doubt that we will see some incredible images from this new technology, the James Webb is a huge tech upgrade from the Hubble. The Hubble was built with 1990’s technology, versus current computing and imaging tech in the James Webb. It’s like going from a using 1995 flip phone to the best smartphone on the market today.

The James Webb will let us see even farther out into the universe, the next leap is to unlock quantum mechanics and figure out how to cross interstellar space without spending a thousand years to get there.

This is a thrilling time to learn about astronomy, get on YouTube, expand your mind!

-Ben Alexander

February . 2017