Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

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Wade1000
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Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Post by Wade1000 »

Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Here are some very interesting visual scales to study while we wait for 'Distant Worlds'. Who else has some similiar links?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U (good scenery video as it zooms from earth, travels far, then returns)

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/un ... /index.htm (left and right slider with objects on grids)

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347 (wait for load then push play: VERY interesting fast or slow zoom in or out with slider; try zooming out at the human while trying to know your size significance as you slowly zoom all the way out.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0lxbzgw ... re=related ('Size of the Universe' video zooming out with narrative)
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/universe.html
About the Map
This map attempts to show the entire visible Universe. The galaxies in the universe tend to collect into vast sheets and superclusters of galaxies surrounding large voids giving the universe a cellular appearance. Because light in the universe only travels at a fixed speed, we see objects at the edge of the universe when it was very young up to 14 billion years ago.

Image
The Size of the Universe
The visible universe appears to have a radius of 14 billion light years because the universe is about 14 billion years old. The light from more distant objects simply has not had time to reach us. For this reason everybody in the universe will find themselves at the middle of their own visible universe. The precise scale of the universe is complicated by the fact that the universe is expanding. Galaxies we see near the edge of the visible universe emitted their light when they were much closer to us, and they will now be much further away.

The true size of the universe is probably much larger than the visible universe. The geometry of the universe suggests that it may have an infinite size and that it will expand forever. Even if the universe is not infinite, our visible universe must be a minute speck in a much larger totality.
The Hubble Deep Field
In December 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at a blank area of the sky in Ursa Major for ten days. It produced one of the most famous astronomy pictures of modern times - the Hubble Deep Field Image. A part of it is shown here. Almost every object in this image is a galaxy typically lying 5 to 10 billion light years away. The galaxies revealed here are all shapes and colours, some are young and blue, whereas others are old, red and dusty. The Hubble Space Telescope has also produced two other similar pictures: the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998 and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 2004.

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A Slice of the Universe
By collecting distances to thousands of galaxies in a narrow strip of the sky, it is possible to produce a slice of the universe, like this one shown below from The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey which looks out into the universe to 3.5 billion light years, although not much data was collected for galaxies beyond 3 billion light years. These types of plots show how clustered the galaxies in the universe really are, even on the largest scales. About 52 000 galaxies are plotted.

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Duckfang
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RE: Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Post by Duckfang »

http://newsizeofourworld.ytmnd.com/

http://atinyglimpse.ytmnd.com/

Watch em in the order I linked. [;)]

That Youtube video you linked was amazing.
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Gargantou
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RE: Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Post by Gargantou »

I have seen'em before(Both your links wade and yours Duckfang) and yes they are quite amazing and really puts our tiny size and place in the universe into perspective.

We've come a long way from the time we thought that everything revolved around us.[;)]

Makes me think though, most scientists these days are fairly sure that galaxies eventually 'age and die' just like we do, but what of our universe? Will it eventually die? And if so, is it possible that there are more universes than ours? Will we ever even set foot in another star system?

Bah! So many questions, such a short lifespan! It's not fair.[:(]
Duckfang
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RE: Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Post by Duckfang »

ORIGINAL: Gargantou

Makes me think though, most scientists these days are fairly sure that galaxies eventually 'age and die' just like we do, but what of our universe? Will it eventually die? And if so, is it possible that there are more universes than ours? Will we ever even set foot in another star system?

Bah! So many questions, such a short lifespan! It's not fair.[:(]

Just to lift your morale, Gargantou, there are several theories on what happens to the universe. One is that eventually it all gets pulled back together and smashed to pieces, possibly primed for another Big Bang. This is called the "Big Crunch":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch

Another is that, eventually, everything will decay -- even the nuclear bonds that hold the atoms together. The universe will just continue to drift apart until everything slowly falls apart and becomes background radiation. Then the universe slowly cools to one uniform background temperature and nothing ever changes again. This is called Heat Death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

There are a bunch more theories if you really feel like having your morale lifted today, they're here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_f ... e_universe

Enjoy. [:D]
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Gargantou
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RE: Scale of our Milky Way galaxy and the universe sites/links:

Post by Gargantou »

Thanks, heard many of'em before.

I do hope for the 'Big Crunch' leading to a new 'Big Bang', leading to a new chance for life etc.

I also hope that somehow mankind finds a way to escape it's highly likely extinction through the use of a God-Emperor(AKA me!)

[;)]
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