Want some perspective on where you fit in on the universe?

[dataDave]

I reckon every single star has planets, and if our solar system has one which is easily capable of harbouring life, who's to say ALL of them don't have at least one?

The Fibonacci scale/sequence makes me think more about life in other star systems which are much bigger than ours, I'm long over it's wonder and link to nature. Perhaps their timeline of life evolution is exactly the same as ours, it's just bigger/smaller. It sometimes makes me doubt the existence of fantasy style environments and habitats, creatures with three legs, walking plants, Avatar/Pandora style, all that kind of thing - probably tosh - but life similar if not exactly the same as ours, definitely not!

[NW2013]

If the universe is so big where's my teleporter?

[Richard.John]

The bit that blows me is that the known universe is estimated to be 93 billion LIGHT years across. Light travels 10 trillion kilometres per year. Just think about that, and then consider that the universe is three dimensional. So how many atoms make up that 3D space. Utterly mind boggling.

[Richard.John]

I was discussing that newgrounds.com animation with my scientist friend and I asked him to calculate the rough estimate of the number of atoms in the universe. I think it was 10 followed by over 80 zeroes or something. I then said to him, just think that every atom in your body makes up part of that total, and every human being in the world is part of that sum, and every drop of ocean, grain of sand, blade of grass or molecule of air is part of it too, and that's just the Earth's contribution.
Beyond imagination.

[Anpanman]

The bit that blows me is that the known universe is estimated to be 93 billion LIGHT years across. Light travels 10 trillion kilometres per year. Just think about that, and then consider that the universe is three dimensional. So how many atoms make up that 3D space. Utterly mind boggling.

Yes it is, love all this kind of stuff, used to be into astronomy as a kid, even watched a Sky at Night the other week.
The daughter is quite interested too, only five but at school the other month the teacher asked if any of the kids knew about the planets, the daughter put her hand up, named all the planets, in correct order from the sun and went on to explain that Pluto is cold, Mercury is hot, Saturn has rings and Jupiter has a big spot where it is very windy.

Talk about making her dad proud was positively gushing when the teacher told me.

I've always wondered about the universe and 'if' you could travel to the end - what would be beyond that?

[importaku]

I've always wondered about the universe and 'if' you could travel to the end - what would be beyond that?

Thats the one that always makes my brain hurt, if you went in a straight line eventually you would have to reach the end of something. Unless it's like asteroids you go off the screen & reappear at the other side, space kind of looping in on itself so it's like your travelling forever.

[Richard.John]

It's stuff like this that makes me scoff at religion. So the lord in his wisdom created a vast expanse of nothingness, 93 billion light years in diameter, and then just happened to impart that tale of creation to a literally meaningless species on a meaningless lump of rock, somewhere in the backwaters of his work of wonder? Oh and then it depends on which version of God you believe in. Man made nonsense.

[MisterBubbles]

How could you travel to the edge or end of the universe , it would be physically impossible with light speed technicalities, meaning you can only ever travel at the speed of light , and the universe has been expanding for 14 billion years , so you could never catch up to the edge.
p.s in current theory there is no edge and the universe will expand forever.
heres a link for laymans terms in an article from the telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7521287/Hubble-telescope-shows-Universe-expansion-is-speeding-up-and-proves-Einsteins-theory.html

[importaku]

Well theres no real way that you could travel that distance but if you could stay alive that long & there was a way to travel that far, what is at the end? Nothing surely can go on forever, it seems like forever to us as the distance is so immense but eventually there has to be an end?

[importaku]

Just read that article ah my head hurts lol

['Press Start']

I don't think intelligent life would travel the universe point a to point b.

Draw 2 X's on paper then link them with a line. The paper is space and the line represents time. Most would think the quickest point between the 2 is a direct line but if you fold the paper then the 2 x's merge into one. If you can fold space and time then you can create a direct door to specific point. In theory if course, thats just theory in our little minds, who knows what other life is up to out there.

The other way is to build robots who can build themselves based on the basic materials found in the universe. They would build a factory on a planet then multiply and travel off in different directions. Anyway long story short it means you would have infinate robots building themselves at light speed after they reached cetain numbers.

Anyone read the artical about the new quantum encoding which cannot be hacked unless you are at the location the information is being sent to? It simply means point A sends a message to point B and the only security needed is the user to be at point B, it cannot be intercepted between the 2 locations.............well yet anyway.

[Neon Ignition]

What lies at the edge of the Universe?

Shenmue 3

[Tig]

What lies at the edge of the Universe?

Shenmue 3

I find it easier to believe in a fourth dimension than Shenmue 3...

[Lyris]

Mind blowing stuff, I wish I understood it better.

This is the bit I find most interesting:

Since light takes 13 billion years to reach Earth from these galaxies, the image we see actually depicts a time when the Universe was only 800 million years old. (Big Bang Theory)

Wait, what? So it lets you basically "look back in time"? Did I totally misread that?

Hi-res image here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg

[peeveen]

Cool pics/animations. I love this stuff.

They say truth is beauty and beauty is truth, so the only model that makes sense to me would be if we could zoom out far enough and find that the entire universe is actually just a subatomic particle in another universe, etc.