Astronomy Stuff

[Chinahand]

Want to see half a million galaxies floating in space.

 

Well click here then.

 

Half a million galaxies - with an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy that means there are something like 50 trillion - 50 million million - alien star systems in this picture. WOW. Captain Kirk would take a mighty long time to explore all of them!

 

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams

[Chinahand]

Another stunning image to zoom in on - try it on full page view - WOW.

 

Incredibly its only a 14 minute exposure, but has produced incredibly beautiful views of two or so nebulas near Orion's Belt.

 

Zoom into the smaller one and see the ripples in the star forming dust - then remember the atoms that your body is made up from were formed from such dust drawn into stars which then supernova'ed.

 

Edited - link updated - to zoom in go to the zoomable link on the mid right hand side.

[Cret]

t's mind boggling stuff alright.

 

Only just noticed this thread but ace links, thanks.

 

For some reason earlier today before I'd seen this the question about whether space is infinite or not popped into my head, completely randomly.

I started to consider the possibilities of it but I have to confess that it nearly made my head fall off, because whether the answer is yes or no, it's just totally beyond comprehension, never mind if the answer turns out to be 'sort of', or 'both'.

 

My feeble mind fails after considering this stuff for more than a few moments.

[gazza]

My feeble mind fails after considering this stuff for more than a few moments.

 

same here

[VinnieK]

For some reason earlier today before I'd seen this the question about whether space is infinite or not popped into my head, completely randomly.

 

I don't think anyone has the answer to that yet, and it's further complicated by the question of whether or not there's a boundary. It's generally accepted that the observable universe has a boundary, and this is what's meant when people say that the universe is so many light years across and so on, but the actual universe is much larger and unbounded (I think the standard example is of the surface of a sphere, which is finite, but has no beginning or end).

[Albert Tatlock]

I have read and studied much of this stuff since I was young, and personally, from my own readings and studies came to the frustrating conclusion that I would never understand it all, never mind even much of it. It is mind boggling stuff alright, and the biggest stumbling block to understanding it is our own limited intelligence and limited senses and our comprehension of 'infinity' which is affected by our limited senses and that physically around us. People dedicate their lives trying to get a grip of all this stuff, and still never gain an understanding of hardly any of it - whereas most of us finally realise we have to simply just get on with life and make a living and just accept we can't understand it, come up with our own theories, accept some combination of theories within our understanding, or accept 'god and jebus and all that' as an easy cop out - as we plough on with everyday life.

 

Personally, I am content now to believe: that our universe is roughly spherical shaped, finite but expanding, and has been expanding for around 15 billion years since the big bang formed the universe. And everything around us is just energy i.e. when you look inside a block of metal or a human brain you 'see' atoms, look further 'see' protons etc. then further still and 'see' quarks, leptons etc. - which are simply compromised of energy.

 

That all this energy is emitted by superstrings, which also provide the same energy to an infinite number of other universes, as the energy can actually be in numerous (infinite) places at once, with all these other universes all 'around us' (a multiverse) even overlapping our own universe, though we cannot 'see' the rest of the multiverse as our perceptions are limited to 'our normal' perceptions of length, width, breadth and time and the physicality of our own universe.

 

That there are 10 dimensions altogether bounded by these energy superstrings, providing the energy for the 'multiverse' so that every possibility and combination we could imagine has occured or could occur within the multiverse somewhere, making them eventual certainties somewhere in the multiverse - even though we can't see or experience them. That's why I'm agnostic on 'god', 'ghosts', 'psychics' and other phenomena, as in time I believe science will always discover new ways of eventually explaining, or even 'seeing' more and more of what is also around us in this 'multiverse' - though I suspect these phenomena won't be god or the ghosts of people - but as people are energy, and every possibility could occur in a 10 dimensional multiverse, who knows.

 

I also believe that most of the mass of our universe - the 'dark matter' they keep looking for - isn't actually spread about all around us at all, but is probably located on the 'wave front' at the edges of our universe as it expands, forming a 'fuzzy physical boundary'.

 

We are only just scratching the surface in trying to understand it all, just as ants might one day try and explain the 'mysterious lights' in human towns and citys to each other.

 

I have my own understanding...but I realised some years ago I need to be content with that and get on with life...though I remain awe inspired whenever I see pictures like what we have been seeing especially since the hubble telescope was launched, and hear of new planets being discovered. The fact that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars in each, along with a reasonable understanding of probability and statistics, makes me firmly believe that there will be life in various forms throughout our own universe, even maybe within a few light years from here - that contact greatly limited by Einstein's theories on the limitations of travel.

 

We've only been at this for a couple of hundred years with very limited technology - who knows what humans will know in a thousand years.

[Pierrot Lunaire]

You've got to hand it to God. He doesn't do things by halves.

[Cret]

Interesting post Albert.

 

The general consensus from what I've seen goes along your lines of, it's expanding constantly and since you'd never get to where the edge is as it keeps moving it's thus deemed as infinite.

 

So it's dead big, and getting bigger as it's expanding.

But what's it expanding into? Surely the 'space' that space is expanding into must be infinite? So you're back to the original question really, and thus still resulting in a done in head!

[slinkydevil]

You've got to hand it to God. He doesn't do things by halves.

 

Who?

[Bombay Bad Boy]

[Albert Tatlock]

Interesting post Albert.

 

The general consensus from what I've seen goes along your lines of, it's expanding constantly and since you'd never get to where the edge is as it keeps moving it's thus deemed as infinite.

 

So it's dead big, and getting bigger as it's expanding.

But what's it expanding into? Surely the 'space' that space is expanding into must be infinite? So you're back to the original question really, and thus still resulting in a done in head!

It isn't expanding into anything, because there is nothing 'outside' of our own universes' space and time for it to expand into - i.e. the volume of space, and time, does not exist outside of it - only within it.

 

Hard to get your noggin around that, when we clearly picture 3 dimensions and time and think it must like that outside of the universe too, when it isn't. There is no outside, the universe is everything, though other universes are likely to exist too.

[Whimsy]

From my short stint as God in the seventies, I am allowed to tell you about your universe.

 

It is an atom, inside the wooden leg of a chair. All the other atoms in that leg are also universes, and indeed are all the atoms where the chair is situated.

 

Which is in a small country cottage in an area not entirely similar to Dorsetshire.

 

 

 

And naturally, every atom inside you, and all that surrounds you, is also a complete universe, in which there are huge woodeny things like chairlegs each containing trillions of universes.

 

 

Take care of that chair.

[Chinahand]

Go outside and look to the South West - you'll see a bright "star".

 

In fact it is the Planet Jupiter.

 

Exactly 400 years ago tonight Galileo Galilei first turned his telescope to the heavens and this is what he saw.

 

 

The moons of Jupiter changed our world view - consigning the world from the centre of the universe.

 

Tonight is a major aniversary of a huge moment in the history of science. Go out and look - if you've binoculars you'll probably be able to see the 4 Galilean moons. They are quite a sight!

 

Edit it will have set by 19:30 so be quick!

Edited October 18, 2013 by Chinahand

[Spider]

hi i'm adding a reply here so i can start a new post but did any one see a fire in the sky last night it looked like a plane on fire over douglas head flames where falling from it i contacted the airport but they new nothing of it ,i cant believe there is no mention of it anywhere

[jimbms]

All credit to Mony Python:

 

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving

And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,

That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,

A sun that is the source of all our power.

The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see

Are moving at a million miles a day

In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,

Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.

It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.

It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,

But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.

We go 'round every two hundred million years,

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions

In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding

In all of the directions it can whizz

As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,

Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,

How amazingly unlikely is your birth,

And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,

'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.