FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[What's Burning?]

Ran across something today that's not only cool, but it gives you an idea of how big our universe is and how little our very large solar system is when put on a scale of the observable universe. Sort of goes in line with my current siggy.

How Big Is Our Own Solar System?

[stonemonkey]

it appears it's not as big as the BBC!

WTF!

We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee

[bud]

[stonemonkey]

Cheers bud.

Ran across something today that's not only cool, but it gives you an idea of how big our universe is and how little our very large solar system is when put on a scale of the observable universe. Sort of goes in line with my current siggy.

How Big Is Our Own Solar System?

thought it was gonna be Brian Cox and his sugar lumps again.

I think this is also good at giving some impression of the scale of things.

[youtube]oAVjF_7ensg[/youtube]

[bud]

That was only part of it too there is more!

[What's Burning?]

The "there's more" comment bud threw in there, is that you'd have to continue scrolling at that scale for 21 billion years.

[stonemonkey]

That was only part of it too there is more!

Yeah, I gathered there was a little more to it.

[Jabberwocky]

If anyone is lucky enough to visit Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands along the sea front is an in scale solar system

http://wilkgo.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/po ... pture.html

[Big Azza]

Every day I look check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

And just a few days ago they had this epic intereactive scale.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html

[vaptin]

I always like this one, we used to heckle for it in physics class:

[youtube]0fKBhvDjuy0[/youtube]

[synsei]

Having just watched the Hubble Ultra-Deepfield video above I have a question that I hope will increase my knowledge of the structure of the universe, so please forgive me if some of what I am about to write seems a little naive...

According to the Big Bang Theory the universe came into existence at one point in space and time. Out of this event the entire universe popped and expanded into what we can observe today. It states in the video that the Ultra-Deepfield image records galaxies that formed as far back as 500 million years after the Big Bang. Presumably the universe was far more compact back then so therefore the target we are looking at is far smaller than we observe today. This begs the question: Once we have honed our technology to the point where we can observe the universe back to just a few million years after the Big Bang, in what direction do we point our telescope? I realise that this question is far more complex than it may first appear...

[darwin dali]

Having just watched the Hubble Ultra-Deepfield video above I have a question that I hope will increase my knowledge of the structure of the universe, so please forgive me if some of what I am about to write seems a little naive...

According to the Big Bang Theory the universe came into existence at one point in space and time. Out of this event the entire universe popped and expanded into what we can observe today. It states in the video that the Ultra-Deepfield image records galaxies that formed as far back as 500 million years after the Big Bang. Presumably the universe was far more compact back then so therefore the target we are looking at is far smaller than we observe today. This begs the question: Once we have honed our technology to the point where we can observe the universe back to just a few million years after the Big Bang, in what direction do we point our telescope? I realise that this question is far more complex than it may first appear...

It doesn't really matter which direction since the universe is curved (for lack of better term). If you were to travel 'straight' long enough, you'd end up at the same place again after gazillions of years of travel (provided a black hole on your way didn't swallow you ).

[What's Burning?]

Think of it as a loaf of raisin bread baking. If you watch the dough as it bakes and rises the entire loaf expands and even though the raisins are moving away from each other, in relevance they are still ALL moving away from each other. So if you're on one of those raisins it looks as if every other raisin is moving away from you. If the universe is infinite, then infinity doesn't have a middle because there is no beginning and no end.

[LewEngBridewell]

Bloody hell, that massive picture took a while to load, and even now, the thread is a bit jittery when scrolling up and down. From that, I take it that the solar system is pretty large.

[synsei]

Having just watched the Hubble Ultra-Deepfield video above I have a question that I hope will increase my knowledge of the structure of the universe, so please forgive me if some of what I am about to write seems a little naive...

According to the Big Bang Theory the universe came into existence at one point in space and time. Out of this event the entire universe popped and expanded into what we can observe today. It states in the video that the Ultra-Deepfield image records galaxies that formed as far back as 500 million years after the Big Bang. Presumably the universe was far more compact back then so therefore the target we are looking at is far smaller than we observe today. This begs the question: Once we have honed our technology to the point where we can observe the universe back to just a few million years after the Big Bang, in what direction do we point our telescope? I realise that this question is far more complex than it may first appear...

It doesn't really matter which direction since the universe is curved (for lack of better term). If you were to travel 'straight' long enough, you'd end up at the same place again after gazillions of years of travel (provided a black hole on your way didn't swallow you ).

I can go with curvature idea but there must be an observable point at which the galaxies kinda run out because they haven't formed yet, if you get what I mean? I understand the Raisin Bread analogy. It's not the expansion of the universe that I have a problem with it is the looking back in time bit, because effectively that is what we are doing when we look at objects in the sky. The further away they are, the further back in time we are looking. So, at some point and with the right technology, we should be able to at least see the remnants of the Big Bang which theoretically should be in a particular spot, or am I missing something? What complicates matters is that we are observing from a place that didn't even exist back then. My head hurts...