BillRiccio
Member
Closer pic of the shuttle against the sun
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Space: The Final Frontier
- Thread starter Windu
- Start date
I have a random question. In all these pictures of astronauts in space, in orbit around the Earth, you can't see any stars. Obviously this is due to light pollution from the Earth and Sun or whatever. But is the reason why we can't see them in pictures due to the camera's exposure settings? Obviously they would need to be lower to block out the stars, and see the Earth clearly, but if you got up in there in space would you be able to see the stars yourself (since your eyes can automatically dilate depending on what you're looking at) or would you have to actually be in orbit over the dark side of the Earth? Come to think of it, I never see pictures of astronauts doing space walks over the dark side. Maybe it's just too black as shit over there to do anything.
Much bigger version of this here:BillRiccio said:Closer pic of the shuttle against the sun
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/3531410425/sizes/o/in/set-72157617823159021/
DarkJediKnight
Member
ElectricBlue187 said:
What's going to happen is when a revolutionary discovery is made in propultion technology, it will continually advance. None of us will be around when it happens.
Memphis Reigns
Member
Koshiro said:
What gets me is that that shuttle is like, 90 million miles away and the sun still looks like a fucking beast. It's amazing how crucial and magnificent it really is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-layer_insulationJoeMartin said:
Sometimes what you're seeing can be aluminum as well.
DarkJediKnight
Member
deadbeef said:
Correction. We will find civilizations, do something stupid to anger them, go to war with them and get annihilated! :lol
As I've said several times before, I firmly believe that Space Mining is the KEY to humanity ever travelling the stars. The hundreds of billions that can be made will make nations rich overnight. Thus ending poverty in even the poorer nations due to the near limitless supply of wealth.
You'll have a futuristic version of the Cold War Space program again between leading nations where one tries to reach further asteroids etc... With so much resources invested, the space race will finally take off! It will be like comparing an early 90s Cell phone to what we have today.
DarkJediKnight
Member
If you stare at Atlantis, then the center of the sun, it looks like the Sun is shrinking. MINDBLOWN!!! :lol
DarkJediKnight said:
Possibility. Heck, even most near future-far future space movies show mining as the starting point.
Also, anyone know if there is any truth to this:
http://tinyurl.com/pe2xbk
Australian SETI-Astronomers Detect Unknown Signal
Sydney/ Australia - Instead of listening to possible alien radio signals, Australian OSETI-Astronomers looking for possible intelligent laser pulses from distant civilizations have detected an unknown signal that could not have been identified yet.
...And indeed, in the first week of last December (2008) Bhathal's team detected an unusual strong laser signal that could not have been identified nor did it re-occur since: "It may be a glitch in our equipment, or some astrophysical phenomena (e.g an optical pulsar) or some unknown source. We are still investigating it", told Bhathal to the German online-newsmagazine "Grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de".
Even if still unidentified, the signal's discovery seems to have created enough enthusiasm within the team to mark it with a "Was t ET?"-comment - not unlike the famous "Wow"-Mark next to the detection of a strong, narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University.
- STS-125 Launch (HD)
- ET Tank Falling To Earth
- ACCESS HUBBLE 1
- ACCESS HUBBLE 2
- Progress 33 Docking to ISS (HD)
- STS 125 Flight Day 2 Highlights
- STS-125 Hubble Grappling
- STS 125 Flight Day 3 Highlights (HD)
- STS 125 EVA #1
- STS-125 Flight Day 4 Highlights (HD)
- Access Hubble 3 (HD)
- STS-125 EVA #2 Highlights (HD)
- Access Hubble 4 (HD)
- Access Hubble SM4 (HD)
- STS-125 EVA #3
Sorry I've ignored this for so long! Been meaning to respond to your posts, but I just keep getting distracted.Extollere said:
The Andromeda Galaxy is M31. Where it is in the sky will depend on where you live and the time of night. Heavens Above can be an excellent resource for this. If you can find Pegasus in the sky, that's a great start. Using Cassiopeia may be helpful (it looks a like a big W). Once you find that, and you're in dark sky (only a small amount of light) and your eyes are somewhat adjusted, you can spot it using averted vision. Basically, look slightly away from where the galaxy should be and you'll see a little fuzzball. That little fuzzball is a galaxy filled with over a trillion stars.
This isn't an easy task, and if you're not very good with constellations and finding things in the sky, it's probably not the best thing to start out with. That said, it's pretty incredible once you realize what you're looking at. What's even better is looking at it with a pair of night vision goggles. You can see an amazing amount of detail.
Just to comment on this (and sound even more negative!), don't forget that radio transmissions are light as well, so they're bound by that speed limit. If we discovered an alien civilization 50 light years away (pretty small in galactic terms), it would take 50 years just to receive the initial message, then another 50 years for them to receive the reply. So, like you say ... hopefully we find some alternative.Extollere said:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4317016.htmlpopular mechanics said:The most remarkable thing about Apollo 11considering the uncertainties of manned spaceflight and the mishaps that bedeviled NASA on previous and subsequent missionswas its nearly flawless execution, from liftoff to splashdown. I had the sense that surely something would go awry sooner or later, flight director Glynn Lunney says. It was pretty much by the book. Here are the critical events that had to go right, and what would have happened had they gone wrong.
Mission Guide:
Click For Bigger Image
(1) Launch
Five F-1 rocket engines fire 0.3 seconds apart to lessen astronaut-debilitating acoustic vibrations, and the Saturn launch vehicle slowly rises off Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral (then Cape Kennedy). Any engine failure during the 11 seconds it takes the spacecraft to creep past its launch tower could result in pad fallback or collision with the tower. We had a contingency plan for everything we could think of, propulsion engineer William Lucas says. But if the problem was 100 feet off the ground, then thats catastrophe.
(2) Pitch and Roll
Two miles off the pad, Saturns guidance computer puts Apollo 11 on the proper trajectory. Without precise execution, the craft will fly off-course at a velocity approaching 1500 mph. During the launch phase there were three of us who had the abort switch, H. David Reed, flight dynamics officer, says. I had one because the trajectory could go before you could discuss it. Loss of control would mean ejecting the crew capsule and destroying the rocket.
(3) Translunar Injection
After 1.5 Earth orbits, a 6-minute burn by the Saturn's third-stage engine sends Apollo 11 toward the moon at 24,000 mph. The engine has already provided Saturn's final push into space; some at NASA fear reignition in microgravity will fail, as it did on unmanned Apollo 6, because of trouble feeding free-floating propellants to the engine. Failure here would leave an alternate mission in Earth orbit as NASA's consolation.
(4) Docking and Extraction
The CSM separates from the Saturn, then couples with the LM, removing it from the launch vehicle.
(5) Translunar Coast
Apollo 11's three-day, 240,000-mile journey to the moon.
(6) Loss of Signal
Each lunar orbit takes Apollo 11 behind the moon, rendering it incommunicado with Mission Control in Houston for 45 minutes. Lacking the onboard navigation and computing power needed to target a return to Earth, the spacecraft receives targeting information from Houston before each loss of signal. If acquisition of signal fails when it emerges from the backside, the landing will be scrubbed and the crew will use that information to target a contingency burn home.
(7) Lunar Orbit Insertion
After loss of signal, Apollo 11 fires its service propulsion engine in two burns to slow its momentum and enter lunar orbit. The first lasts 6 minutes and places the craft in an initial orbit of 170 x 61 nautical miles. A second burn lasts just 17 seconds and eases Apollo 11 into an orbit of 66 x 54 nautical miles, ideal for lunar module separation and powered descent. Using two burns reduces the chance of an overburn, which might crash the spacecraft into the lunar surface.
(8) Lunar Module Separation
LM undocks from CSM to prepare for descent.
(9) Powered Descent
As the LM begins powered descent, communication with Houston drops in and out. Then, 7.5 miles from the surface, two program alarms sound and continue intermittently for much of the landing. Computer experts in Houston assure the crew it is safe to continue. If the ground calls for abort, Neil Armstrong would throttle up the descent engine and return the LM to orbit for retrieval by the CSM. He would have been in a different orbit, so it would be a complicated rendezvous, says John Llewellyn, retrofire officer. But we would never leave a guy in orbitever. That was a rule.
(10) Final Landing Phase
Just 350 feet above the moon, Armstrong realizes the autopilot is guiding the LM toward an enormous crater surrounded by boulders and begins to steer the craft downrange. This maneuver nearly exhausts his fuel supply. We wanted to complete the mission if we possibly could, so we stretched it right down to the very bottom of the tank, LM control officer Bob Carlton says. Armstrong risks entering dead man's curve, where, if fuel reserves run out, the LM is still too high to safely crash-land, and will fall too quickly to successfully abort.
(11) Ascent
After 22 hours on the moon, the LM must fire its ascent engine. No abort contingency exists. Flight director Glynn Lunney: The rocket engine had to work in order for us to get off the surface of the moon and up into an orbit where we could rendezvous with the command ship. If the ascent stage reaches an altitude of 11.5 miles, the CSM can descend for an emergency rescue, but failure to attain even that low lunar orbit makes recovery impossible, and the LM will fall back to the lunar surface.
(12) Rendezvous
Having reached lunar orbit, the LM executes a series of thruster burns that initially put it into concentric orbit with the CSM, then slow the spacecraft's velocity to prepare for docking. If the LM propulsion system fails at any point during the 4-hour procedure, the CSM can execute a mirror-image maneuver and drop back to retrieve it.
(13) Lunar Module Jettison
LM detaches from CSM and is left in lunar orbit.
(14) Trans-Earth Injection
The CSM engine fires, sending Apollo 11 back to Earth.
(15) Trans-Earth Coast
Apollo 11's return voyage to Earth.
(16) Command Module Separation
The CM sheds its service module before entry.
(17) Entry
After jettisoning the service module, the CM enters the atmosphere at a velocity approaching 25,000 mph and an entry angle of minus 6.488 degrees. The velocity of entry and the flight-path angle had to be very closely controlledwithin a tenth of a degree, says Chris Kraft, director of flight operations. Safe splashdown requires successful deployment of two of the craft's three parachutes. On Apollo 15, one failed, but all of Apollo 11's chutes deploy, gently dropping the CM in the Pacific, where Navy recovery crews await.
Thanks for the info Fallout. I live in an area with too much light pollution but maybe next time I'm out camping. I never really learned all the constellations but I kind of want to now.
Damn, I didn't think about that! I bet those are fairly expensive though :/
It's so bizarre to think about. None of the closest stars have habitable planets orbiting them (none that we know). And with all the billions of galaxies, and billions of stars inside, chances of life increases the further you broaden your scope, and the more stars and solar systems you try to observe. I guess if there are civilizations out there, chances are they are way out there. If something from 1,000 lt years away (also very very close) sent radio waves, who knows. We might not even be here anymore. But the mind boggler for me is that if there are civilizations out there looking at our planet from thousands, or millions of light years away, they wouldn't even see us :lol just some dusty old Earth.
You know what else is weird. The spiral arms in the Milky Way are 6,500 light years apart, yet we're all rotating around the center. When you look at stars in the Milky Way they are actually closer to you than the information from where the light was. (not that it makes any visible difference) It's just weird to think about.
fallout said:
Damn, I didn't think about that! I bet those are fairly expensive though :/
fallout said:
It's so bizarre to think about. None of the closest stars have habitable planets orbiting them (none that we know). And with all the billions of galaxies, and billions of stars inside, chances of life increases the further you broaden your scope, and the more stars and solar systems you try to observe. I guess if there are civilizations out there, chances are they are way out there. If something from 1,000 lt years away (also very very close) sent radio waves, who knows. We might not even be here anymore. But the mind boggler for me is that if there are civilizations out there looking at our planet from thousands, or millions of light years away, they wouldn't even see us :lol just some dusty old Earth.
You know what else is weird. The spiral arms in the Milky Way are 6,500 light years apart, yet we're all rotating around the center. When you look at stars in the Milky Way they are actually closer to you than the information from where the light was. (not that it makes any visible difference) It's just weird to think about.
They basically get a view of the stars unfiltered from light pollution and atmospheric disturbances. You can get something like that here, say out in the desert, but I imagine it'd be a little more impressive.Extollere said:
Also, just as an interesting side note, the Apollo astronauts used stars for navigation purposes on their trip to the Moon.
http://www.ion.org/museum/item_view.cfm?cid=6&scid=5&iid=293
Memphis Reigns
Member
Extollere said:
But I think there is a chance that if the nearest civilization was say, X number of light years away, that they would have sent out a random message X number of years ago, in which case we'd be getting it around now.
Memphis Reigns said:
Very true. Considering the age of the universe, it's very likely that many many other civilizations have come before us. Who knows however, if close ones achieved the same level of intellect and technology as we have (or beyond it) before dying off. Again, if they sent something 1,000 light years ago they might not even be there, but then again 1,000 years isn't very much time, even for our own species. It would probably take planetary devastation to extinct a species as wide spread as our own. Who knows. Maybe theirs is the planet waiting for our "alien" signals, and waiting for their own technology to evolve. There are all kinds of possibilities. Maybe we are the only habitable planet in the Orion arm (not likely but..)
It's also interesting to think that if the Milky Way is almost as old as the Universe (13.2 billion I think, compared to 13.7) I wonder if it takes a galaxy 13 billion years on average to produce a habitable planet, that leads to intelligent life. The planets around us, as old as we are, are proof that there are at least certain conditions to creating and sustaining life. For instance, it seems to me that it would be improbable that there would be very harsh planets out there that are extremely hot, or have heavy gasses, or harsh winds, that also fosters an intelligent race that has adapted to the conditions, like some sort of rock people. The elements (that we know of) are all the same across the galaxy, so the conditions for life such as ours are probably similar to our own planet. Although I don't really know if we truly know enough about the Universe to just assume this. It's just speculation really. But if so, does it take an average of 13 billion years to produce a planet of the right temperatures, the right elements and gasses, to begin and harbor life, to let it evolve time and time again to consciousness, then I suppose the other life forms would be right about where we are, and I guess if they are just starting to send out radio waves, as we have in these past few decades, then we'll be waiting a long, long time before we ever get them. Heh, then again we could be surprised at any moment, so it's good that we're doing this shit.
fallout said:
It makes me wonder then, why don't they take two shots for every picture? One with exposure to see the astronauts, equipment, and earth, and another for the background with the stars and galaxy. Compose the two together later so we can see the images as they might instead of just seeing the Earth against blackness. Would make a much more immersive and believable picture (not to mention stunning). They already alter images with coloring and other effects. Then again I guess if they could do that they would.
Here you go Extollere:
http://www.physorg.com/news161358845.html
We have good arguments from both sides though. So who knows.
PhysOrg said:
http://www.physorg.com/news161358845.html
We have good arguments from both sides though. So who knows.
exactly! That's what I'm talking about right there. Shit takes time. 14 billion years isn't a long amount of time in terms of the entire Universe. It's long to us, due to our short life spans, and because of the way we perceive time. If it takes a galaxy roughtly 6 billion years before it can start producing rocky planets, and then another handful of billion to enable it to start the process of evolution. The idea that perhaps, there are intelligent forms so far more advanced than our own that they could travel among galaxies seems... well it seems like if it were true right now we would have already experienced it (and with all the mathematicians, astrophysicists, and scientists of our time only able to speculate on the possibility of FTL travel, none have proven that any particles with mass could travel faster than light itself. Warps and wormholes aren't even understood well enough, let alone proven that they exist in the way we think they might. If these constraints are truly Universal, then I can't see any intelligent form making real contact with us any time soon, but I can see us discovering, or at least proving the existence of habitable planets with or without life in our own life time, or in the very near generations to come) It seems more likely that.. like that article states, we may still be in an early generational pool of intelligent forms. It is exciting to think that there are other solar systems with other planets similar to our own that have life evolving on them right now, but who knows where that evolutionary chain is really. Ok I realize that is a huge little chunk of tangents, but I'm not trying to make any argument about it one way or the other, just speculating and trying not to get ignant 
That's a good article btw. I like one of the first comments:
Heh, when you stop and think if there is intelligent life in the Universe, our planet is proof. It's hard to assume that out of the trillions of suns out there, ours was the only one capable of bringing about this planet, with these conditions and this history. It most certainly isn't, but given that human life has only recently shown up (for a teeny tiny brief second of time!) in the entire history of the Universe, and it has taken this long for our planet to ultimately produce us (Natural Selection sure ain't fast!), the more unlikely it seems that there are planets with civilizations so much more advanced than ours. The chances outweigh this notion I believe however, and chances increase the further you get away from our own solar system in all directions, so it's easiest to conclude that all advanced civilizations outside our own may be placed too far away to ever make contact with. With the distances and travel measured in light, the time between planets becomes too great, greater than the the life span of several civilizations over. Meaning, as said before...by the time you make contact with them, they will be gone. Obviously it would be optimal to find intelligent life much closer, but the chances become less and less as the scope shrinks.
"Life in the universe? Almost certainly. Intelligence? Maybe not"
Does the author deny his intelligence or doesn't he have it?
Heh, when you stop and think if there is intelligent life in the Universe, our planet is proof. It's hard to assume that out of the trillions of suns out there, ours was the only one capable of bringing about this planet, with these conditions and this history. It most certainly isn't, but given that human life has only recently shown up (for a teeny tiny brief second of time!) in the entire history of the Universe, and it has taken this long for our planet to ultimately produce us (Natural Selection sure ain't fast!), the more unlikely it seems that there are planets with civilizations so much more advanced than ours. The chances outweigh this notion I believe however, and chances increase the further you get away from our own solar system in all directions, so it's easiest to conclude that all advanced civilizations outside our own may be placed too far away to ever make contact with. With the distances and travel measured in light, the time between planets becomes too great, greater than the the life span of several civilizations over. Meaning, as said before...by the time you make contact with them, they will be gone. Obviously it would be optimal to find intelligent life much closer, but the chances become less and less as the scope shrinks.
Quazar said:
Daamn. That's good reading. I am gonna grab a bagel (like a BOWSE) and then read the rest. Thanks for sharing, and just to re-clarify to anyone skim reading my posts, I am not trying to assert anything - I don't know shit about this shit. I am just speculating, or thinking my random thoughts online. More reading material (especially from people that know more) is always good.
Memphis Reigns
Member
All that talk about type II, III, IV civilizations makes me mad that im part of a type 0. Imagine what a type III is doing out there right now in terms of technology n shit.
Memphis Reigns said:
If the history (evolution) of man is only roughly 5 million years old, and civilization is only 10,000 years old. Seeing as where we came from (and where we are going) it's easy envision habitable planets where their evolution had a few million years of a jump start ahead of us. It's reasonable to conclude that once a species reaches intelligence and also technology they advance pretty rapidly. A civilization a million years older than our own could very well be far beyond what we may even be able of imagining, smarter as well. However as the article said as civilization has to develop faster than the frequencies of disaster, and who knows how many planets with life may have been destroyed at the beginning of their evolutionary cycle and couldn't do anything about it. It is also curious think if certain evolutions won't reach the end of their chain, as many species have discontinued to evolve. So might we if certain constraints prove impossible to overcome such as light speed, or certain theories, such as warping, are proven false.
Hmmm. That was an awesome article though. Really got me thinking.
Man I just watched a Discovery Channel thing that told me the poles are gonna shift in 2012 and I'm fucked. They said that right on the air, "Hey Heath, if the poles shift, your lame ass is gonna be frozen, or buried under lava, or suffocated, or burned, depending on how Earth wants to deal with you."
I wanna write it off because screw that noise but it's not like Fox News here, it was the Discovery Channel.
Does Vegas have odds posted on this happening? I usually don't get worried about doomsday stuff, but when space shit gets involved, I admit I must wonder.
I wanna write it off because screw that noise but it's not like Fox News here, it was the Discovery Channel.
Does Vegas have odds posted on this happening? I usually don't get worried about doomsday stuff, but when space shit gets involved, I admit I must wonder.
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
Extollere said:
daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayuuuum! I could barely understand everything, so interesting. It's also weird that some stars move faster away from us then the speed of light, so we can't see them
.May16 said:
Hyperbole. They will shift eventually. Not in 2012 though, unless a huge ass asteroid knocks us off our axis. There is nothing scheduled to hit us by then.
shaft said:daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayuuuum! I could barely understand everything, so interesting. It's also weird that some stars move faster away from us then the speed of light, so we can't see them
I'm kinda confused now. If no matter can travel the speed of light (because it just gets heavier and heavier) how can entire galaxies be moving faster than the speed of light? Is it moving on momentum? There is so much weird shit about the Universe that sometimes I think we will never truly understand it all.
Extollere said:
That was pretty cool. Haven't seen that before.
This person is pretty good too follow on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Zuke696
dark_chris
Member
My dream is to peer into a telescope far away from the city. =]
It can be done! Look for star parties in your area. See if there's an astronomy club or some kind of gathering. I've yet to meet an amateur (or professional, for that matter) astronomer who didn't love showing things off through their telescope.dark_chris said:
I was at Star Fest one year and my friends and I were checking out this beautiful refractor. It had this really nice wood finish on it and was generally just really impressive. Anyway, the owner was talking with a friend a number of feet away, came over and proceeded to tell us all about how he had modified it, what it was capable of and told us to come back when it was dark out so we could use it. He even said to just go ahead and use it if he wasn't around.
I'm not saying everyone will be that nice and trusting, but it's generally been my experience.
Nexus Zero
Member
As far as I understand, the speed of light is relative to the 'density' of the fabric of spacetime. So when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light, it was the fabric of spacetime that was expanding quickly rather than the matter itself.
Extollere said:
It's been explained to me like this: They're traveling faster than the speed of light relative to us. We are moving in one direction very fast and they are moving away from us very fast.
ex;
(-) <-----x----------------------------------------------------------------------y-----> (+)
x: [some other galaxy] (v = -.6c)
y : Milky way (v = .6c)
velocity of y with respect to x = 1.2c
I'll direct you to wikipedia and this quote:
In my non astrophysicist mind it basically means that it's an effect of space time getting stretched out.
@Desperado
For an external observer, it would seem so, I think.
But for somebody in the galaxy x the milky way would still seem to move at c, allbeit redshifted.
Desperado said:
That makes more sense now. So in theory, if nothing can move faster than light, but two objects can move away from each other at near light speed, can the highest possible relative speed be obtained is 1.9~c ? Hmm I bet there are some interesting theories on this.
Quazar said:
Nice. Here's some cool videos. Not sure if any of these have been posted earlier in this thread, but I think most have not.
History of The Universe parts 1,2, & 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpFbUI7T6Yk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrHMH94Mrk0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SgnnV8nV9g
Welcome to The Universe 1 & 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAmWibS2bI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0aSRgCntA (History of Astronomy)
Faster Than The Speed Of Light 1 & 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxNbXjBbzEo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTNGmlOO2g (previously posted above)
The Hubble Deep Field
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpkSeVgvA0o
Mysterious Giant Blob Discovered at Cosmic Dawn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FEH_b-DtP4
Our Small World (comparison video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8BncJ7XMLk
Creation Astronomy Propaganda Debunked 1-6 (Great random factoids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8O46wUCw5A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOMfVmLVhVA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkcE5kQQiH4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZI58kSl0MM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j46FXXnDKWk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5Ps4ZKJlQ
It's weird. We're experiencing an event horizon at our particle horizon in deep space because of comoving distance. It isn't actual FTL speed, but in terms of relativity, the space is expanding between objects at a speed faster than the light can keep up with. Black holes also have an event horizon, I wonder if speed/movement is related. Is a black hole invisible because a force is moving/spinning it at a speed greater than light or is just really really fucking heavy to the point where light can't even escape it? I wonder what happens when the super massive at the center of the galaxy eats every star around it. Will it explode and release all of its mass creating new nebulas, releasing star dust and gasses everywhere, or will it just sit there, or suck up a neighboring galaxy?
Quazar said:
Well, there goes my work ethic. :lol
There are HUNDREDS of awesome videos on this guys page, it's incredible. I just finished watching a few episodes of When We Left Earth and now I'm watching some show hosted by Michio Kaku about the Quantum Revolution. I feel like a kid at the candy store right now
Damn you!!
Yeah that page is awesome. So I just had a good little conversation with my buddy on the theories surrounding Supermassive Black Holes. If these black holes are at the center of every galaxy, and they are slowly consuming the galaxy from the inside, eventually one must assume that the galaxy will be gone, and all that will be left will be the Black hole (containing all the matter from the galaxy) These would have immense amounts of gravity. What would happen then, if every galaxy eats itself and comes to a singular point of energy? Would the black holes collapse again? Would every black hole be drawn to each other, and collide? If the later is true, then you would basically have the same set up as the big bang, where every piece of matter and energy is collected in one area so dense, and so small, that it cannot withstand itself and would re expand rapidly (this is all purely speculative), in other words another big bang. One wonders if this has happened before a multitude of times, or if it's even possible considering the expansion of the universe. Although it's also speculated that with expansion everything will will freeze (would it keep moving or slow down?) Anyways... strange to think about.
DEAD RABBIT
Member
Desperado said:
Sorry, no, this is not how it works. According to General Relativity, what is actually expanding is not the matter in our Universe, but the space-time geometry itself. Matter is simply inside this geometry. We don't see this effect at the scale of solar systems or individual galaxies. However, we can measure this effect looking at the relative positions and redshift of collections of galaxy clusters.
Assume for example that our Universe is a nice round balloon. The observer, you, are inside the balloon in the middle and looking upward to the sky. The stars are projected against the balloon. The stars move relative to each other as well, but within the bounds of light-speed, assuming that the balloon's size is constant and fixed.
But the size of our Universe is not constant. It grows, hence the balloon gets slightly bigger over time. The stars emit light at light-speed of course and you see this light. However, because the universe itself expands at a constant acceleration (it grows ever more-so faster), the velocity at which the balloon expands increases as well. The constant acceleration is the key and that the Universe expands with the same acceleration at every point in the Universe, because that means that the larger the balloon is, the faster its surface is moving away.
I'm not quite clear on the details of the mathematics of this, however it is clear to see that the speed of light can be 'violated' (not really). Say two objects on opposite sides of the balloon are moving away from each other, with a relative velocity very very near to c. But the balloon itself is also expanding, thus it increases geometrical distance between the objects even more, thus it bumps the actual relative velocity beyond the speed of light, and thus either of the object pair will never see light emitted from either one of them.
The balloon 'mind artifact' exists of course everywhere in the universe. In fact, the observer is not in the middle, but on the surface of the balloon. The light-speed constraint and the expansion of the space-time geometry maps on the surface of a sphere, a balloon! I'll be quite frank, I don't know why the geometry of a surface of a sphere works, but the basic idea is that the space-time itself expands as well.
Hootie said:Well, there goes my work ethic. :lol
There are HUNDREDS of awesome videos on this guys page, it's incredible. I just finished watching a few episodes of When We Left Earth and now I'm watching some show hosted by Michio Kaku about the Quantum Revolution. I feel like a kid at the candy store right now
Damn you!!
Take a look at the playlist too http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Zuke696&view=playlists shiiiieett