HUBBLE THURSDAY

(This Hubble Space Telescope composite image shows a ghostly ring of dark matter in the galaxy cluster CL0024 + 17. Click on image to enlarge.)

Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite.


What a piece of work are we
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals

I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air-- look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors

What a piece of work are we
How noble in reason

How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?

Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide

Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!


[Note: Before you begin kvetching that Shakespeare, whose play Hamlet is the original source for these lyrics from Hair, was using "man" in the "general" sense (as if centuries of sexist language make it okay to perpetuate), I suggest you go read the original. You'll discover the line as Shakespeare wrote it is "What a piece of work is A man" and he makes it very clear he's referring to male human beings, because at the end of the passage he says he finds no delight in men, adding "nor women either." The writers for Hair obviously felt fine about altering Shakespeare to make it scan and fit a rock lyric. Thus, I feel fine as well, since my revision scans AND brings females unequivocally into the reference.]