As the Hubble Space Telescope's new camera blinked to life a few weeks ago, transmitting sublime views of galactic tumult on the outskirts of time, gasping astronomers were not all merely agog over a new set of data points. The phantasmic glow of infant stars and massive galaxies not only promised that the science would continue to advance further into its golden age but, for some, suggested even more transcendent possibilities.

"It's not the awesomeness of the science that makes me believe that there has to be a God," says Howard Bushouse, a Hubble astronomer who studies galaxy collisions and star birth. "I have always believed in God. But when I see these awesome things, it's just that much more confirmation for me that, wow, this is an even greater God than I ever thought before."

The fact that private ruminations of professional astronomers sometimes turn metaphysical is a surprising little secret at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the center on Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus that coordinates Hubble research. Of course, astronomers at STSI may raise an eyebrow, as some did recently, when the release of new Hubble photographs prompts a call from someone who insists he has spotted an image of Jesus in the starlit miasmas. But the fact is, the idea of a Divine Hand, God or Beautiful Theory is very much alive in the minds of some scientists who view the same startling images.

They just don't always feel comfortable discussing it.

"The fact that we don't tend to talk about it a whole lot really might be that some people may be a little scared or shy about it," says Bushouse. "Just because of concern about the possible negative reactions from colleagues."

Centuries ago, the religious impulse of astronomers could not be separated from their scientific quests. But as astronomy developed and discoveries continually pushed theological notions further and further into their own separate realm, religion became a topic that was, if not forbidden, rarely discussed in professional circles.

Today the subject of God and astronomy is still not what one might call a hot topic at the institute. Conversation is more likely to buzz over, say, the thermal history of intergalactic gas than whether Hubble's revelation of an expanding universe makes us all more or less the product of accidental events or honored guests at Creation's most hospitable planet. The project's search for origins is explicitly not a search for religious meaning, and at STSI, the imponderable "why" questions of existence often seem less interesting than those "how" questions that scientists actually have some real hope of answering.

Still, with its ability to picture the evolution of galaxy formations and star births since early stages in time, Hubble promises to continue helping scientists detect how the universe came to be. And if they discover the Earth is not the only planet inhabited by intelligent life, or that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, or that the Big Bang was not the one moment of creation but that there was, in fact, no beginning, well, some might think data points could become theological points pretty rapidly.

Whether scientists themselves see these as religious questions depends on which astronomer you query.

A 'beautiful' theory

Mario Livio, who heads STSI's science division, acknowledges that he is not a religious man. But he defends other people's need for religious viewpoints, and insists they can easily coexist with the disciplines of astronomy and theoretical physics. Religion, he says, is simply a matter of faith about which science has no bearing.

"We are all standing breathless in front of these [Hubble] pictures," he says. "We have to be in awe from all the beauty and complexity of this universe we live in. But there is one difference here between religious people and the pure physicist. If you are a religious person, then presumably it inspires you to think all the beauty and complexity must have had some great designer behind it. And this, I suppose, only strengthens your beliefs.

"If you are a nonreligious physicist, then what you think is, 'Wow, how can I really explain with the laws of physics the emergence of all this complexity?' But it's not as if you have to take every law of physics and translate that into some property that you would like God to have or take any particular property of the universe and say that this does or does not agree with holy writings. That isn't the intent in either religion or science."

That does not mean, though, that the philosophical implications of newly emerging data are lost on Livio. Quite the contrary.

A few years ago, astronomers using data gleaned from Hubble showed that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. It was stupefying, a proclamation that shook many astronomers' cherished belief in fundamental laws governing the cosmos. The news not only suggested that, as Livio says, "everything will just become more and more dilute, and, you know, it will reach a cold death at the end," but also introduced the notion that a substantial component of the universe [65 percent] is mysterious "dark energy," an anti-gravitational force that defied understanding. The "beauty" of fundamental laws suddenly appeared to be quite ugly, after all.

In a moment of upheaval in the discipline, Livio's private ruminations about what Hubble wrought became the topic for his book The Accelerating Universe, in which he proposed a cosmological aesthetic principle to which any valid theory of the universe should conform. For Livio, an acceptable theory, first, had to be "beautiful."

In his argument, he defined three ingredients of beauty for cosmologists: symmetry (fundamental laws of physics will be the same at all times, in all places); simplicity (the complexity of the universe can be explained with a few basic laws); and the Copernican principle (humans do not occupy a privileged place in the universe).

Why this last point, in particular, became so important was because some physicists, wrangling with the expansion problem, suggested that intelligent life could only emerge in a universe such as ours. In other words, the universe might have been "fine-tuned" for human life -- a distinct violation of the Copernican principle.

In the book, Livio discounts the idea of a finely tuned universe, and insists that humans' physical presence here has no special significance.

"Our universe, for all I know, may have been the ultimate free lunch," he says. "It may have appeared, literally, out of nothingness -- what we call quantum fluctuation. Our universe may have tunneled from nothingness into being the universe that we see. I think that's a serious speculation, but it's not impossible according to the physics that we know."

Reading the pictures

For Livio, these are not religious issues. And yet he does not hesitate to admit that against these issues he has posited an abiding faith in the aesthetic of fundamental principles. "I would say it is an experienced-based faith, if you like, in the beauty of the theory."

But "faith" for other astronomers can mean something much more traditionally religious. For them, questions raised by Hubble data and other discerning observatories only tend to enhance religious belief.

Anton Koekemoer, a STSI astronomer with research interests in cosmology and active galaxies, holds

to standard Christian tenets not only that the universe was created by God, but also that humans were created both "to declare God's glory," as he says, and to have a loving relationship with that God. Like Livio, he finds pictures from the Hubble beautiful and sublime. But even more, he says, they reflect a staggering spiritual eminence.

"I never appreciated the full scale of the universe until I saw those pictures of the Hubble Deep Field, where you could see thousands and thousands of galaxies together in the sky and contemplate how small our place is in that sky," Koekemoer says. "But it is not only awe-inspiring. When you realize the scale and then realize as a Christian that God has this relationship with us individually, it shows that we are very special. People who believe in God should see that relationship is all the more special."

In fact, Koekemoer believes, even his career as an astronomer has developed according to a divine plan, not exclusively by his own designs. Although the impetus for becoming an astronomer stemmed from a desire to understand the science, he says, as he gets older, the spiritual motivation has become stronger. "I consider myself a witness to God's glory," he says.

Hubble findings and those like them can, however, pose challenging religious questions, said Bushouse, whose own research promises to expand quickly with Hubble's recent pictures of galaxy collisions dubbed "Tadpole" and "The Mice."

For instance, Bushouse points out, science raises reasonable doubts about assertions that the universe has been "fine-tuned" to allow for a human presence on Earth and that the universe has evolved in such a way to put human concerns at the center of things.

"I've read some people who subscribe to the belief that 'fine-tuning' means there must be an intelligent design to the universe," he says. "I tend to agree there was some design, but I'm not convinced that ours is the only possible design."

Current thinking in astronomy, which allows for the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere, he says, cannot be discounted. Nor can he, as a scientist, ignore the possibility of multiple universes, or that universes existed before ours or could come after ours, or that other universes might operate under wholly different physical laws.

A scientist, he says, must be open to possibilities.

"Statistically, there is some [slight] chance that life could have developed or conditions are right to support life in other places," he says. "We certainly have no evidence to prove that, but we have no evidence to deny it.

"From a religious point of view, it's a little more questionable to me. I'm not sure. Again, it's possible. God can do anything. If he wants to put another race of beings some place else, he's certainly capable of it. Of course, then that immediately opens up other religious questions like, well, what their religious history has been like. Is it the same as ours? Did they fall into sin? And if so, did Christ also get sent to their planet? All kinds of interesting things that we'll never know the answer to. But it's the kind of thing that if people ask me about it, I say, well, yeah, maybe this could happen, but it's not something you should lose any sleep over."

Spiritual component

Directly across the street from STSI, William Blair, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, has grappled for years with matters of religious faith (he's Presbyterian) and science (his research centers on supernova remnants). For him, facing religious questions comes squarely with the territory -- as does keeping a sense of humor.

"These are pretty heavy questions," he admits. "I do believe the universe was created, but is there a reason for it? That's sort of a judgment call. That's reading into it that somehow, somewhere God is out there and there is reasoning behind it. And I honestly don't know how to answer that.

"There are theories that ours could be one of umpteen gazillion universes, and people have lot of wild ideas about that. And I don't think that there being some creative force that created our universe is that outlandish. From my experience, the whole creation that I see, whether I'm looking out this window or looking at the Tadpole galaxy taken by Hubbell, there is a creative force at work.

"It probably doesn't hurt, from my perspective, that I have felt that creative force in my life. But I really can't look at what I see and just assume that this could happen by chance."

Blair pauses for a long moment, letting his statement hang, then bursts out laughing. "But don't quote me on that."

He realizes his is not the most popular view among colleagues. But like Livio, who aligns a kind of personal faith with the long experience of scientific judgments, Blair's faith also stems from personal experience -- an added dimension that is decidedly metaphysical. A spiritual component to his work has been critical since the beginning.

"I truly believe that God wanted me to be an astronomer -- wants me to be an astronomer," he says.

The idea that his career has been directed, in part, by the companionship of a higher spirit is one that developed very early in his career. As an undergraduate at a small liberal arts college in the 1970s, Blair says, he had decided to pursue astronomy, but the odds were against him. He not only applied to just one graduate school, the University of Michigan, but his education had not prepared him to compete with more capable applicants. Somehow, he says, he managed to "sneak in" from a waiting list. Later, when he applied to the Ph.D. program, he competed in preliminary exams with students whom he knew were far more capable and better qualified. Again, doors opened.

"I said at one point, 'God, if this is the way it's supposed to be, you're going to have to help me do this. I don't think I can do it alone.' And I got through prelims on the first try. That was the first confirmation for me that what I'm doing now is somehow connected to what God wants me to do."

Nonetheless, his work as a scientist has sometimes raised significant questions about the existence of this deity. In 1984, he says, those questions became especially pronounced after he and an astronomer at STSI struck up a conversation about whether what they were discovering as scientists actually discounted the idea of a divine order. "He was saying, 'Look, where is God in all this? We've looked at all these stars and galaxies and physical processes, and I don't see God at work out there anywhere.'"

Shortly afterward, Blair traveled to the American observatory near La Serena, Chile, and while he continued his observations of distant galaxies, the conversation played in back of his mind. During a break one day, he went for a hike in the bleak desert terrain around the observatory and found himself confronted by his colleague's question.

"At one point," he says, "I sat down on a rock in this high-altitude desert, contemplating the idea that I could be spending my time looking out at all these galaxies and not seeing God. All of a sudden I happened to glance down at my feet and I noticed a lot of little flowering plants. Somehow I hadn't seen them before, but as I looked around, they were stretched out as far as the eye could see. That's when realized I didn't have to look out there to see God, I could see God right here. For me it was, literally, a mountaintop experience."

A quiet company

Since then, his own faith in the existence of God ("it's proven as much as it has to be proven," he says), has made astronomical observations like Hubble's that much more remarkable, Blair says, because he finds in them an intimate connection.

"It can become very mechanical, taking observations and logging them onto computer tapes and keeping track of exposures," he says. "but every once in a while, you can have moments where you feel that connectedness. From a scientific perspective, knowing something about the universe and what is out there and our place in it and somehow, inexplicably, that God could care for this planet and this person, well, it's a remarkable combination. That's very strong for me."

Although conversations about astronomy and religion have become more common in recent years, they remain tangential even among spiritually inclined scientists. At STSI, for instance, the center of some of the most exciting astronomical research in the world, religious astronomers like Bushouse and Koekemoer did not even know until relatively recently that like-minded people worked in the same building.

A few years ago, Bushouse joined an Internet group for Christian astronomers set up by an astronomer in the Midwest. The first thing many members did was look to see who else might have joined their new on-line assembly. "And lo and behold," Bushouse says, "there were the names of several people here at the institute with whom I work and a few others elsewhere who I've worked closely with, but I had no idea of their religious interests."

In retrospect, it may not be so surprising. Today, he says, if you asked members of the group about conflicts between what they do as scientists and what they believe as religious people, they would say there is no conflict, no need for reconciliation and no grounds for debate. The two areas represent, in many ways, entirely separate pursuits.

"Science and religion exist to serve fairly different purposes," he says. "I'm not even sure that there should be much overlap in what they do. They aren't designed to answer the same questions, despite the fact that every time we [STSI] go to NASA or NSF [National Science Foundation] for money for research, we say we are here to find out more about the true origins of the universe.

"I'd say we know the origins in terms of why. We just don't know the complete mechanics of how it happened."

On the cover

A colorful image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in November 2000 reveals the black-hole-powered core of a nearby active galaxy that lies 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus. At the center of rings that contain gas, dust and major starburst activity lies the Seyfert nucleus, believed to be the signature of a supermassive black hole. Because it lies near the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy, the Circinus galaxy was partially hidden by dust in our line of sight and went unnoticed until about 25 years ago.

To view more Hubble images, go online to www.stsci.edu.