The Universe

[Brogan]

It began 13.7 billion years ago.
It contains over 100 billion galaxies, each one with hundreds of billions of stars.
It is expanding at an ever increasing rate:

Adam Riess and his team observed quite a few galaxies in this way, and figured just how fast the Universe is growing to unprecedented accuracy. His result: 74.2 ±3.6 kilometers/second/megaparsec

That means for every megaparsec (about 3 million light years) you go out, the Universe is expanding 74.2 km/sec faster. So a galaxy 10 Mpc away would be moving away from us at 742 km/sec. Adam’s measurement jibes well with other measurements, so there is reason to be confident in his results.​

​

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/07/the-universe-is-expanding-at-742-kmsecmpc/

What was there before the universe?
Where did it come from?
How big was it to contain all of those galaxies and stars?
Where is it?
What's outside the outer edge?
What is it expanding into?

The scale and figures involved are beyond comprehension, to say nothing of the concept.

Nothing blows my mind more than this.

 

[Vortex]

Its incredible to think everything in the universe came from a single point smaller than an atom, including space and time itself.

 

[Greenlantern101]

You should read Prof Hawkins 'A brief history of time' it attempts to answer several of the above.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I don't think you can describe how big the universe is, there is a thing called spacetime which is affected by mass in essence space and time are bent by mass which gives us gravity (gravity is not a magnetic force) if you add up all the gravity in the universe it appears there is not enough of it compared to its size, this is a big problem, if you believe that spacetime is so bent that it curves back in on itself like a mobius strip I personally believe the answer lies at the centre of black holes.

The big bang was not a single event more ever it happened in all space at all time there is no center to it which means there is no outer edge to it.

As to what was there before I have my own thoughts on that as well.

 

[Vortex]

Did you see that episode of horizon, ‘is everything we know about the universe wrong?’? something like that anyway. Fascinating! just looked on iplayer but its not on, it was on tv a few months ago.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Haven't I seen it but I'll look it up this stuff fascinates me

 

[mjo]

The colour of the Milky Way is white, like new spring snow an hour after dawn.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16523528

 

[The Pits]

The colour of the Milky Way is white, like new spring snow an hour after dawn.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16523528

Sort of a milky colour?

 

[Jen]

The colour of the Milky Way is white, like new spring snow an hour after dawn.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16523528

What a poetic thought, mjo - nice

 

[Brogan]

200 billion stars in the Milky Way.

The Wikipedia page on it is quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

 

[tooncheese]

I remember once playing around with some numbers using incredibly basic equations and I came to the conclusion that all of time exists now, somewhere in the universe it has ended, and somewhere it has just started. Although with further research it may be correct as the universe can break the speed of light.

I feel like a scientist now.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Time is not a constant.. light is not a constant velocity is determined by the observers frame of reference.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Does this explain anything?

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Does this explain anything?

EPIC!

 

[Mephistopheles]

It is isn't it.

 

[siffert_fan]

Personally, I don't think the universe is really expanding. I think that dark matter, which is not uniformly distributed throughout the universe, has the ability to lengthen light waves, thereby giving the impression of red shift. The beauty of this theory is that it cannot be disproved yet as nobody knows the properties of dark matter, though there is lots of direct observational evidense of its existence, unlike dark energy, which is conjectural in its entirety.

I expect the universe to end as depicted in my favourite Red Dwarf episode-"Backwards"-in the "big crunch".

 

[RasputinLives]

To quote the brilliant Douglas Adams - Space is huge! You would not believe how huge space is. You might think its a long walk down to the shops but thats nothing compared to space!