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Not entirely related, but the scale of this I find just mind boggling. E.g. I learned a little while ago that the universe of Star Trek just takes place in "our

by pan69 12y ago

Not entirely related, but the scale of this I find just mind boggling. E.g. I learned a little while ago that the universe of Star Trek just takes place in "our" galaxy alone! Not the entire universe, just our galaxy. Imagine the billions of other galaxies out there... Mind blown..

kylek 12y ago
Most of it (original and TNG) actually takes place in the 'alpha quadrant' only. DS9 introduces the wormhole to the gamma quadrant, and Voyager is mostly about the trek back from the delta. Warp 9 is garbage in the grand scheme of things eh! ;)
- dalke 12y ago
  One of the exceptions being when ToS crossed the Galactic Barrier. It took the Kelvans 200 years to get from Andromeda to the Milky way. It would have taken Voyager over 30 years to go the 30,000 light years from the Delta Quadrant. Andromeda is about 2.5 Mly away, or over 80x the distance that Voyager would have had to travel. By this we can determine that the Kelvan ship was about 10x faster than Voyager.
  - kylek 12y ago
    I knew someone would catch me with the exceptions right after pressing reply. There's also the TNG episode with The Traveler, where the Enterprise is pushed 2.7 million lightyears out of the galaxy.
- dghughes 12y ago
  The Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years long and 1,000 light-years deep (Wikipedia). edit: I'm not sure why I felt the need to write that. Voyager was 70,000 light-years from home and it was said on the show they needed 70 years at warp 9 to get home so the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000 light-years per year (365 earth days) plus the whole faster than light thing which disregards the usual light year in a year thing. That's 2.74 light years per day which seems low considering Warp 1 is supposedly equivalent to the speed of light. We've been lied to all these years it's all fake man!
  - vubuntu 12y ago
    What part of "2.74 light years per day" seems low? Assuming your break down to the day level is right, to expand, it means at warp 9 voyager is capable of covering a distance of 2.74 light years in 1 day. That means the distance that light could travel in 2.74 years, Voyager could cover in 1 day. So warp 9 = 2.74 x 365 x speed of light =~ 1000 times speed of light. So warp 1 = speed of light. warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. which does not seem 'low' to me.
    - boyaka 12y ago
      All you did was reverse the calculation that was done in the comment you are replying to. He already stated that warp 9 is 1000 times the speed of light: "the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000 light-years per year"
      - vubuntu 12y ago
        OP points out that warp 1 is supposedly speed of light and yet some how warp 9 being 1000 light years per year is somehow not impressive enough. I reversed the calculation to point out that warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. And want to know what part of it is not impressive enough or misleading. And by the way OP did not directly point out that warp 9 is 1000 times speed of light and my intention was to point that out to make sure they did not get confused by their own calculation which might have led to their underwhelming impression. Seeing OP's response to one of the comments below (warp 9 factor = 834 ) validates my assumption that OP was lost in his own calculations for a moment. Only they can confirm.
  - a_c_s 12y ago
    Warp 9 is 834 times the speed of light Source: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor
    - dghughes 12y ago
      I looked there but couldn't find it which I thought was odd. Thanks!
MichaelApproved 12y ago
Here's something that recently blew my mind, there are stars in our universe that are larger than the width of our entire solar system. Space and objects inside it is huge!
- RemoteWorker 12y ago
  What if I told you there are blackholes larger than our entire solar system? "The diameter of the black hole's immense event horizon is on the order of 110 billion kilometres, 18 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto, and has the mass equivalent to that of two dwarf galaxies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster http://youtu.be/QgNDao7m41M?t=2m40s http://youtu.be/QgNDao7m41M?t=2m40s
  - MichaelApproved 12y ago
    Blackholes I get because I've always considered them big and heard about the massive ones in the center of galaxies but stars felt different because I was used to the size of our Sun. Not that the Sun isn't big, I just expected other stars to be relatively the same size, give or take a few orders of magnates. These things are so large http://www.kratosguide.com/wp-content/gallery/mind-pictures/earth-universe-comparison.jpg http://www.kratosguide.com/wp-content/gallery/mind-pictures/...
    - RemoteWorker 12y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong bu blackholes are compressed matter. They are typically formed by a star that collapses on itself, so they are always very small in comparison. That's why I couldn't believe it when I found out there were some so large. Unless... they become so large by eating worlds over time? Where are all the HN physicists when you need them?
      - MichaelApproved 12y ago
        I believe the singularity point, where all the mass collects, is small (dimensionless) but the gravity well that is created by the mass is what is measured when the size is determined. The edge of the gravity well is referred to as the event horizon. The event horizon of a black hole is the point which matter can no longer escape the gravity of the black hole. However, I've been wrong several times already in this thread so take it for what that's worth.

by pan69 12y ago

kylek 12y ago

Most of it (original and TNG) actually takes place in the 'alpha quadrant' only. DS9 introduces the wormhole to the gamma quadrant, and Voyager is mostly about the trek back from the delta. Warp 9 is garbage in the grand scheme of things eh! ;)

dalke 12y ago
One of the exceptions being when ToS crossed the Galactic Barrier. It took the Kelvans 200 years to get from Andromeda to the Milky way. It would have taken Voyager over 30 years to go the 30,000 light years from the Delta Quadrant. Andromeda is about 2.5 Mly away, or over 80x the distance that Voyager would have had to travel. By this we can determine that the Kelvan ship was about 10x faster than Voyager.
- kylek 12y ago
  I knew someone would catch me with the exceptions right after pressing reply. There's also the TNG episode with The Traveler, where the Enterprise is pushed 2.7 million lightyears out of the galaxy.
dghughes 12y ago
The Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years long and 1,000 light-years deep (Wikipedia). edit: I'm not sure why I felt the need to write that. Voyager was 70,000 light-years from home and it was said on the show they needed 70 years at warp 9 to get home so the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000 light-years per year (365 earth days) plus the whole faster than light thing which disregards the usual light year in a year thing. That's 2.74 light years per day which seems low considering Warp 1 is supposedly equivalent to the speed of light. We've been lied to all these years it's all fake man!
- vubuntu 12y ago
  What part of "2.74 light years per day" seems low? Assuming your break down to the day level is right, to expand, it means at warp 9 voyager is capable of covering a distance of 2.74 light years in 1 day. That means the distance that light could travel in 2.74 years, Voyager could cover in 1 day. So warp 9 = 2.74 x 365 x speed of light =~ 1000 times speed of light. So warp 1 = speed of light. warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. which does not seem 'low' to me.
  - boyaka 12y ago
    All you did was reverse the calculation that was done in the comment you are replying to. He already stated that warp 9 is 1000 times the speed of light: "the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000 light-years per year"
    - vubuntu 12y ago
      OP points out that warp 1 is supposedly speed of light and yet some how warp 9 being 1000 light years per year is somehow not impressive enough. I reversed the calculation to point out that warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. And want to know what part of it is not impressive enough or misleading. And by the way OP did not directly point out that warp 9 is 1000 times speed of light and my intention was to point that out to make sure they did not get confused by their own calculation which might have led to their underwhelming impression. Seeing OP's response to one of the comments below (warp 9 factor = 834 ) validates my assumption that OP was lost in his own calculations for a moment. Only they can confirm.
- a_c_s 12y ago
  Warp 9 is 834 times the speed of light Source: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor
  - dghughes 12y ago
    I looked there but couldn't find it which I thought was odd. Thanks!

MichaelApproved 12y ago

Here's something that recently blew my mind, there are stars in our universe that are larger than the width of our entire solar system. Space and objects inside it is huge!

RemoteWorker 12y ago
What if I told you there are blackholes larger than our entire solar system? "The diameter of the black hole's immense event horizon is on the order of 110 billion kilometres, 18 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto, and has the mass equivalent to that of two dwarf galaxies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster http://youtu.be/QgNDao7m41M?t=2m40s http://youtu.be/QgNDao7m41M?t=2m40s
- MichaelApproved 12y ago
  Blackholes I get because I've always considered them big and heard about the massive ones in the center of galaxies but stars felt different because I was used to the size of our Sun. Not that the Sun isn't big, I just expected other stars to be relatively the same size, give or take a few orders of magnates. These things are so large http://www.kratosguide.com/wp-content/gallery/mind-pictures/earth-universe-comparison.jpg http://www.kratosguide.com/wp-content/gallery/mind-pictures/...
  - RemoteWorker 12y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong bu blackholes are compressed matter. They are typically formed by a star that collapses on itself, so they are always very small in comparison. That's why I couldn't believe it when I found out there were some so large. Unless... they become so large by eating worlds over time? Where are all the HN physicists when you need them?
    - MichaelApproved 12y ago
      I believe the singularity point, where all the mass collects, is small (dimensionless) but the gravity well that is created by the mass is what is measured when the size is determined. The edge of the gravity well is referred to as the event horizon. The event horizon of a black hole is the point which matter can no longer escape the gravity of the black hole. However, I've been wrong several times already in this thread so take it for what that's worth.