Harold “Doc” Edgerton built a special camera to photograph the detonation of early atomic bombs in the Nevada desert. I’ve seen the slow-motion film coverage of this, but seeing the still photos has quite an unexpected visual appeal. I recall my first thought when seeing the moving picture was along the lines of, “I wonder if that’s what the Big Bang looked like?” 
Now, I think that these shots of the rapidly expanding plasmatic wave of mass converting to energy could look likethe baby picture for our universe. I was also reminded of a scene in the recent Nova, The Elegant Universe, where they tried to demonstate how multi-dimensional points in space would appear. If we could visualize what multiple dimensions of space would look like, would they be at all similar to Edgerton’s photos of the nuclear explosions?
On another note, thanks to Space.com for posting a nice full screen version of this galactic Hubble Space Telescope photo. A benefit to paying taxes in the US is that these are our photos, and I’ll download and use them as my desktop wall paper.
Click HERE to see the full image at Space.com.
