Behold, Creation!

Remember last week when we brought you the image from some kind of telescopic lens that showed the Pinwheel Galaxy. (If your memory ain?t what it used to be, head over here.) Well folks, that was nothing. Today, as an end of he week treat, we have a full-fledged image of the entire goddamn universe!

The image is from the Hubble telescope and comes complete with a press release for how they constructed this photograph:

January 5, 2010: More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly. This image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the evolution of galaxies.

The final image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light, and into the near-infrared. Such a detailed multi-color view of the universe has never before been assembled in such a combination of color, clarity, accuracy, and depth.

So, there you go. More than 12 billion years of cosmic history. Right there. That?s nearly as old as Zsa Zsa Gabor*!

* That lame attempt at levity was mostly just a way to bring us all back down to Earth, so to speak. I mean, if you think about this long enough ? that you?re looking at 12 billion years, and what do this mean for the creation of the universe, and how the fuck is it still expanding, etc. ? then odds are you?re not going to get to sleep for another few months. This is the kind of thing that turns mild-mannered individuals into insomniac schizophrenics. The joke was a way to cleanse the mental palate, so to speak, so you?d be able to carry on with your life and not dwell on the infinite nature of what you?re looking at. Of course, by adding this footnote I?m really undoing everything the joke was trying to do. In which case, it?s probably time for me to leave.