Why stop at stars? VY Canis Majoris is just one of a few hundred billion stars in our galaxy, and our galaxy is but a small speck in a sea of galaxies
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...d_high_rez_edit1.jpg
And this is only a very, VERY tiny part of our sky zoomed in.
If that all doesn't blow you away... this part REALLY gets me.
There is a bubble of the known universe that we can observe. Because light only travels at...well the speed of light we can only see out to a certain point. Anything out beyond that is so far away that the light hasn't even reached us yet... so in all likelihood we are in a relatively uninteresting solar system in an uninteresting galaxy in a totally uninteresting corner of the universe and we can't even see out of our little bubble.
That is wild stuff...
Well, given that the age of the universe is estimated at about 13.7 billion years, and that the most distant astronomical object ever observed is a galaxy 13.2 billion light years away, there isn't really that much left beyond that we couldn't see. If we could look a bit further we would be looking at the big bang itself, or it's light from 13.7 billion years reaching us now. The big bang is the bubble enclosing our universe in a way, since looking deeper into space means looking deeper into the past, inevitably coming the the big bang. Which is really weird since, in which ever direction you were to look, if you could see far enough you would see the big bang, yet the big bang originated from a singularity, a single point. Brainbleeding, innit?Originally posted by VW-IceFire:
If that all doesn't blow you away... this part REALLY gets me.
There is a bubble of the known universe that we can observe. Because light only travels at...well the speed of light we can only see out to a certain point. Anything out beyond that is so far away that the light hasn't even reached us yet... so in all likelihood we are in a relatively uninteresting solar system in an uninteresting galaxy in a totally uninteresting corner of the universe and we can't even see out of our little bubble.![]()
Then again, what is, if anything, "beyond" the big bang itself - and in astronomical observation beyond = before since the light of farther objects needs more time to travel to us and thus we see them as they were in the past, that's a question that really starts shaking our foundations of reality and the perception and understanding of time itself.
Pondering the enormous distances and possibilites can occupy the mind endlessly, but one thing that always brings me to a screaching halt is, where did it all come from?
You can't get something from nothing. But then, apparently you can.
When I pick up a handfull of dirt from my garden, I consider that handfull of dirt to be connected, in a way, to that farthest distant object that has long since died yet its light could still be flickering at Earth for a million years. People are always talking about the 'age' of the universe. Well, where was it before it was born?. The 'something from nothing' thing always gets me. P.S. I'll talk about the cat turds in the garden later. They may be connected to something too.![]()