I really hope that when Hubble is finally decommissioned, we have the ability to go up and bring it back to earth. It Belongs in the Smithsonian not in bits at Point Nemo.

Hopefully Starship or New Glenn will give us that kind of capability.

IIRC NASA was going to have Atlantis (one of the STS's, anyway) bring it back near the end of the Shuttle programme.

Turns out prematurely stuffing a valuable scientific tool into the trunk of a crewed orbiter that already has a tendency to explode during reentry was… An idea they had second thoughts on, though.

If we have the ability would anyone put up the funds? I assume the costs would be huge? It would be wonderful to have it preserved.

Musk could maybe do it. Could be good PR

When looking at just a few galaxies beyond our own, can’t help but think I’m also looking at civilizations of the past and present that are thriving like we do, also thinking they are alone like we do

Looking out at galaxies wondering if they are also looking at civilizations of the past and present that are thriving like they are.

Eerie but odds are in your favor.

What if.. I was born in one of those places instead?

Maybe we were…

Might it be possible to see an image of the Milky Way itself, diverted back on to us with sufficiently strong gravitational lensing?

Not only that, we might be able to see events from our past. There was a SciFi short story on that. Can't recall if it's Asimov or Philip K. Dick.

for few thousand out of a few billion years just like us?

and sometime between when the current light hits us and now?

0.5 arcminutes really puts this into perspective — for reference the orion nebula spans about 1 degree

for further reference 0.5 arcminutes ≈ 0.01 degrees

for further reference this is about half the width of your finger at arms length held up against the sky

You’re thinking of degrees.

Half an arcminute is 1/120th of a degree and is roughly the diameter of Jupiter in the night sky. There are about half a billion patches of night sky that are half an arcminute on each side.

It’s also about the size of a softball from a kilometer away.

Oops, you are right, which makes this even more impressive!

I wonder if there’s a way to download high res images? Would make for a nice screensaver.