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I love these kinds of things so much. It makes the universe feel so massive and vibrant with infinite potential. The sea of stars that make up that galaxy is ab

by warent 8y ago

I love these kinds of things so much. It makes the universe feel so massive and vibrant with infinite potential. The sea of stars that make up that galaxy is absolutely staggering. Suppose you were on an earthlike planet orbiting some star near the center of it. Do you suppose the "night sky" would be about as bright as day due to the number of stars?

sundvor 8y ago
Yep, space is just IMMENSE, and this reminds me of the reason why I like exploration in Elite Dangerous so much - a very beautifully rendered space game. With a highly realistic space model, it even gets darker as you reach the galaxy edges. Apologies in advance to the real scientists here for my naivete, however: As we know there's billions of galaxies too - it makes me feel like everything is just a big Mandelbrot set. We've picked galaxies on the top end, and atoms on the other, but is that really where it ends, or is it just the edges of our ability to perceive?
- warent 8y ago
  To my amateurish understanding, it does go smaller than atoms, with subatomic particles like protons which themselves are made of quarks. Beyond that string theorists would say that there would be strings and that's it. Others might say some kind of quantum foam. Going up, galaxies make up groups which combine into superclusters that form the cosmic web of the observable universe. So for all intents and purposes, we can essentially say the universe and the various scales are infinite because it may as well be for humans.
jzl 8y ago
"Do you suppose the "night sky" would be about as bright as day due to the number of stars?" --> I seriously doubt it. Not an astronomer but: 1) Remember that you are looking at a 2D projection of a 3D galaxy. There's a lot more room between each star in 3D. 2) Hubble photos use massive amounts of time lapse to create detail[1]. The picture is being misinterpreted by your brain's intuitive sense of brightness in a typical night sky photo. The density of the galaxy seems fairly typical, it's just a really detailed photo. 3) Look up Olber's Paradox[2]. [1] https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/21261/how-does-the-hubble-telescope-capture-long-exposure-photos https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/21261/how-does... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

by warent 8y ago

sundvor 8y ago

Yep, space is just IMMENSE, and this reminds me of the reason why I like exploration in Elite Dangerous so much - a very beautifully rendered space game. With a highly realistic space model, it even gets darker as you reach the galaxy edges. Apologies in advance to the real scientists here for my naivete, however: As we know there's billions of galaxies too - it makes me feel like everything is just a big Mandelbrot set. We've picked galaxies on the top end, and atoms on the other, but is that really where it ends, or is it just the edges of our ability to perceive?

warent 8y ago
To my amateurish understanding, it does go smaller than atoms, with subatomic particles like protons which themselves are made of quarks. Beyond that string theorists would say that there would be strings and that's it. Others might say some kind of quantum foam. Going up, galaxies make up groups which combine into superclusters that form the cosmic web of the observable universe. So for all intents and purposes, we can essentially say the universe and the various scales are infinite because it may as well be for humans.

jzl 8y ago

"Do you suppose the "night sky" would be about as bright as day due to the number of stars?" --> I seriously doubt it. Not an astronomer but: 1) Remember that you are looking at a 2D projection of a 3D galaxy. There's a lot more room between each star in 3D. 2) Hubble photos use massive amounts of time lapse to create detail[1]. The picture is being misinterpreted by your brain's intuitive sense of brightness in a typical night sky photo. The density of the galaxy seems fairly typical, it's just a really detailed photo. 3) Look up Olber's Paradox[2]. [1] https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/21261/how-does-the-hubble-telescope-capture-long-exposure-photos https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/21261/how-does... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox