4 ms·

There are hundreds of billions? of galaxies though.

by cdelsolar 11y ago

api 11y ago
Intergalactic travel or communication is exponentially harder than interstellar.
- acqq 11y ago
  Exactly. As far as I know, except for the Andromeda galaxy, which will collide with ours, all other galaxies zoom further away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co... Far enough in the future, even if we survive, we won't see any other galaxy -- they will zoom out of our observable universe! The expansion of the Universe accelerates, according to our last estimates.
  - skc 11y ago
    Wouldn't this imply that future generations may actually lose this history? There would be no way to prove that another galaxy ever existed.
    - acqq 11y ago
      The universe is still "young enough" for galaxies to be close enough to each other for a while. But yes, based on the current knowledge of the constants that drive the universe, in some very distant future we can imagine some potential civilizations that will be able to learn dramatically less about the Universe than we already know now, their model will be: What's the Universe? Only the stars around us, all in the group. What's behind them? Nothing. In even more distant future, eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_univers... In the exponentially distant future the Universe is going to get always more and more boring.
      - skc 11y ago
        It's actually fascinating. When future civilizations read "old" science texts it will be virtually impossible for them to not think of them as crackpot science or fairy tales. The idea of other galaxies ever having existed will have about as much verifiable scientific evidence as the tooth fairy
        acqq 11y ago
        The "Big bang" can't be proved anymore then too -- not billions of galaxies all flying away from us, but just: nothing.

There are hundreds of billions? of galaxies though.

api 11y ago

Intergalactic travel or communication is exponentially harder than interstellar.

acqq 11y ago
Exactly. As far as I know, except for the Andromeda galaxy, which will collide with ours, all other galaxies zoom further away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co... Far enough in the future, even if we survive, we won't see any other galaxy -- they will zoom out of our observable universe! The expansion of the Universe accelerates, according to our last estimates.
- skc 11y ago
  Wouldn't this imply that future generations may actually lose this history? There would be no way to prove that another galaxy ever existed.
  - acqq 11y ago
    The universe is still "young enough" for galaxies to be close enough to each other for a while. But yes, based on the current knowledge of the constants that drive the universe, in some very distant future we can imagine some potential civilizations that will be able to learn dramatically less about the Universe than we already know now, their model will be: What's the Universe? Only the stars around us, all in the group. What's behind them? Nothing. In even more distant future, eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_univers... In the exponentially distant future the Universe is going to get always more and more boring.
    - skc 11y ago
      It's actually fascinating. When future civilizations read "old" science texts it will be virtually impossible for them to not think of them as crackpot science or fairy tales. The idea of other galaxies ever having existed will have about as much verifiable scientific evidence as the tooth fairy
      - acqq 11y ago
        The "Big bang" can't be proved anymore then too -- not billions of galaxies all flying away from us, but just: nothing.