So astronomers spotted a galaxy merger 14 billion light years away.

frye666

frye666

Banned
Banned
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Messages
6,907
Reaction score
627
And it made me think, I really can't comprehend what 14 billion light years really is. I mean I can say it, explain it, and even define it with something relative, but it really is simply too much for me to comprehend. A lot of things about the universe is like that with me. I get to understanding what they are saying, but then as soon as I understand what they mean, am lost. IT is something like this. How did the universe start. Everyone can answer that. Now what was before that? And where did that come from. Basically, the universe or anything in it started, but what was before? It is beyond human comprehension. How can something have always been?
 
A single light year is too large a distance for a human to comprehend. 14 billion? Incredible
 
Really puts into perspective how insignificant we are in the universe doesn't it? We're lucky if we figured out how to colonize and utilize our own solar system within the next several hundred years.
 
Can you get Domino's pizza insurance there?
 
I think it was Neil Degrass Tyson that said however big you think the universe is, you’re wrong, it’s much bigger.

Milky Way Galaxy has about 200 billions stars (Andromeda has a trillion stars). Our universe has about 100 billion galaxies.

It’s kind of sad and frustrating knowing that we’ll never get to see even a tiny bit of our galaxy let alone others.
 
The solar system didn't even exist when these galaxies merged.
 
JudoThrowFiasco said:
it was 12.4 -- 14 would technically be outside the CMB and outside our scope
Click to expand...
Your number is right. But that number isn't the point. I am trying to grasp how everything began. But it seems to have no beginning. So in such a scenario, there have been an infinite number of you posting this very message. If there is no beginning, all things have happened endless amount of times.
 
frye666 said:
Your number is right. But that number isn't the point. I am trying to grasp how everything began. But it seems to have no beginning. So in such a scenario, there have been an infinite number of you posting this very message. If there is no beginning, all things have happened endless amount of times.
Click to expand...

Well there is an approximate start date of 13.8 billion years ago -- and various theories of how it came about from krauss's quantum fluctuations to Turoks ekpyrotic universe theory. Give them a read, its fun to learn about.
 
I was thinking about this on an airplane last week. It seems like I was so high up and going so fast, but really it’s slow as fucking shit and only a minuscule amount of distance compared to space travel. It’s definitely trippy.
 
JudoThrowFiasco said:
Well there is an approximate start date of 13.8 billion years ago -- and various theories of how it came about from krauss's quantum fluctuations to Turoks ekpyrotic universe theory. Give them a read, its fun to learn about.
Click to expand...
Yes of course. But then you get into the universe constantly expanding, contracting, exploding over and over.....the black holes all combining to create a singular particle that explodes again. And thus it has always been. And that leads to the same thing. How do you understand infinity. Something had to start it all, but it has always existed.
 
Your brain is likely the result of evolution driven by gaining a competitive advantage in hiding Bananas from other monkeys.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect a point in our exploration where the data is just beyond our context and ability to imagine.

The same is true if you try to imagine the behaviour of atomic and sub atomic particals.

What I'm saying is don't sweat it.
 
closequarters said:
I think it was Neil Degrass Tyson that said however big you think the universe is, you’re wrong, it’s much bigger.

Milky Way Galaxy has about 200 billions stars (Andromeda has a trillion stars). Our universe has about 100 billion galaxies.

It’s kind of sad and frustrating knowing that we’ll never get to see even a tiny bit of our galaxy let alone others.
Click to expand...
looks like it’s closer to 2 trillion galaxies. they’ll find out more in October.

https://www.universetoday.com/30305/how-many-galaxies-in-the-universe/
 
Meanwhile some people still think Earth is flat.
 
Michaelangelo said:
looks like it’s closer to 2 trillion galaxies. they’ll find out more in October.

https://www.universetoday.com/30305/how-many-galaxies-in-the-universe/
Click to expand...
I still have a framed copy of the Deep Field South, which showed that even a small area of the sky, smaller than the apparent size of the Moon, is carpeted with galaxies, and it's representative of the sky in all directions.
They're everywhere out there.

But the Milky Way is our awesome home and it's plenty enough
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,254,411
Messages
56,645,409
Members
175,331
Latest member
psykro

Share this page

Back
Top