Paul and Prosper Henry
French
CA. 1885
Photograph: Albumen silver print from glass negative
We’re talking space again (literally no one is surprised). This is a photograph of the Ring Nebula taken by Paul and Prosper Henry in 1885. Kind of wild that they were able to capture this image in the 1880s, but they managed to develop a photographic telescope capable of tracking stars for up to an hour. We use the same method for astrophotography today, but thanks to the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, we get to see some more detail and color in the images. Hubble was designed to observe both the ultraviolet and visible light spectrums, whereas James Webb was designed to observe the infrared light spectrum. Because of this, James Webb is able to capture images of extremely distant and old galaxies in much more detail and color than any other space telescope in existence. For some reference, the Ring Nebula in this image is about 2,000 light-years from Earth, and the furthest object we have photographed recently is over 13 billion light-years from Earth. If you were to see some of the nebulae and galaxies in space with your own eyes, the truth is that you probably wouldn’t see much. These objects emit light on spectrums that the human eye cannot see, therefore, our telescopes help us out significantly.
All of this sounds super advanced, and while it is amazing progress for humanity, I (and many others) wouldn’t go as far as to say that we are a scientifically advanced society. This brings me to my main topic: the Kardashev scale. Some of my fellow nerds probably know what this is (shoutout y’all), but if you don’t, I’ll try to explain it to the best of my ability (this is all completely hypothetical, so please keep that in mind lol). The Kardashev scale, created by Nikolai Kardashev, is a way to measure how technologically advanced a civilization is. There are three categories all based on the type of energy that is able to be harnessed. Category 1 civilizations are those that would perfect the ability to harness the energy of their planet, as well as the energy that reaches their planet from their star (solar, hydro, wind, etc.). A category 2 civilization could harness the full power of their star. There are a lot of different hypotheses about how this could be done, but the most popular is by far the Dyson sphere. This would involve creating a system of mirrors (or similar structures) around the star and redirecting all of that energy to a point on the planet. A category 3 civilization could harness the power of their galaxy.
Kardashev stopped at category 3, but of course, people have kept the categories going. I have seen hypotheses that suggest up to category 6 civilizations, where they would essentially be able to harness the power of the universe. That sounds absurd, I know, but there is a really interesting idea in there. If a civilization had that much power, they could do things that are unfathomable to us. And if we think about outer space and all of the unexplainable events that occur, this hypothesis could provide some sort of explanation. I have seen people propose that a category 6 civilization would be what we view as God. It’s definitely a wild card to throw out there, but I could see the angle they’re coming from.
Like I said before, it’s important to take all of this with (many) grains of salt. The Kardashev scale has been criticized for a very long time, and you can poke holes in hypotheses all day long. I still think it’s a really interesting idea, and if you were wondering, our civilization would be considered around a 0.7 on the scale. Remember that to be in category 1, a civilization must perfect its ability to harness energy from their planet and the energy that reaches them from their star. We still heavily rely on fossil fuels, so we lose some points there.
All of this said, I hope I am not coming across as diminishing the technological advancements we have made since this image was taken in 1885. We have come a long way, but the universe is ever-expanding (and we don’t get much funding for space research these days) so I’m not expecting anything revolutionary anytime soon. This felt like one big tangent to the image itself, but it just made me think about how the Henry brothers had no idea how truly incredible what they were seeing was. Look up the Ring Nebula, and you’ll see what I mean. Space objects are so cool, so if you feel like nerding out, here are some fun articles to read:
- “Pulsars as Cosmic Clocks”
- “Dark Matter”
- “NASA’s NICER Probes the Squeezability of Neutron Stars”
- (On the technical side) “Hoag’s Object: evidence for cold accretion on to an elliptical galaxy”
Image sourced from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Not an Artist 