+- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net)
+-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Ramble City (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=44)
+--- Thread: That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! (/showthread.php?tid=4505)
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - Dark Jaguar - 27th August 2007
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/coldspot/graphics.shtml
That image, just to be clear, is a picture of the known universe at the largest scale available. Those squiggly cobweb things? That's a webbing constructed of MASSIVE GALAXY CLUSTERS. Now there's a hole in it, of such size that you should be TERRIFIED the moment you contemplate it. Anyway, scientists don't get what's causing it, and they are exited about that, standard response and all that.
My thoughts? Random baseless conjecture I'll admit, but I'm pretty sure one of the Old Ones sneezed.
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - DMiller - 27th August 2007
It's probably something boring like there is something in that area of space that makes it so we can't detect anything there, but I'll go and say the universe is eating itself starting in the middle. We only have a few billion years left so party while you still can!
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - Sacred Jellybean - 27th August 2007
I'm interested to hear how they'll explain this. But I really hope we end up getting swallowed up right around my old age, because that would be the best way to go.
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - Dark Jaguar - 27th August 2007
Another possibility is they screwed up the observations. Lots of things to check out really.
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - lazyfatbum - 27th August 2007
there's a possibility of dark matter but its most likely just a fault in the instruments unable to record the ginormissity of everything, galaxies absorbing things, giant suns bouncing things, etc.
I read that the known universe is actually a theorized 1% of the whole universe. I wonder if that's still the general understanding.
That's a LOOOOOOT of nothing! - Dark Jaguar - 27th August 2007
I wonder where you might have read it. I hadn't heard anything like that myself. I have a hard time understanding where they would even get an idea of how much "unknown" there is in order to derive such a percentage. I mean some things you can actually get an idea, like ratios of things to other things. As it stands, since they seem to be seeing "back" far enough to get images of just as things are starting to form, it's likely we've seen the vast majority of it.
They did actually consider dark matter, but they ruled it out because dark matter, while it does not absorb, reflect, or radiate light (like everything else), can still alter it in one way, gravity. Gravitational distortion isn't present there, so they had to rule out a big clump of dark matter.
Hey, maybe that's what you read. It's true that by measuring gravitational distortion of light they've found massive amounts of dark matter floating all over the place in the universe, outnumbering so-called "normal" matter by a massive amount. Still, that still counts as "known universe" as scientists observed it, even if indirectly.
Suns don't do much bouncing... Unlike that model kit you have, stars aren't actually made of rubber :D. I kid, but really they measure the size of things with basically massive scale parallax (as in, measuring where things are relative to other things when on this side of earth's orbit and again a few seasons later on the other side). Also some other methods are out there. They can get a pretty good idea that way. In this case, they measured it by looking at "cold spots" in the cosmic background microwave radiation, and also noting that in the same spot in the sky where that radiation is colder, there also seems to be a total lack of infrared radiation. I'm not sure if they measured light in other wavelengths. I'd guess that's where confirmation with other observations come in.