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Almost As Big As The Onion

Try to wrap your brain around this… (via Gregg Easterbrook at ESPN’s TMQ)

Researchers led by Swinburne University of Technology, in Australia, released this map of the “nearby” cosmos. The map contains about 100,000 dots. The dots are not stars; each dot represents a galaxy, and galaxies are thought to average about 100 billion stars each. Thus the area depicted contains… roughly 10 to the 15th power stars, a number far too huge to bother attempting to fathom. And the map merely shows galaxies nearby.  Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is at the center of the map. On the cosmic scale, a place with 100 billion stars is a dot.

Posted by Jed at 1921 hrs
Technology

1. Carl Sagan was not pulling our leg when he said: “Billions and Billions and Billions…”

   There is only one galaxy near us that we can see with the naked eye, and that is the Andromeda galaxy, now in the Northeast corner of the sky. Quite impressive even with a small telescope.

   Just think our national deficit will look like this in about 10 years…

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2043 hrs
   
   
   

2. Obviously, there is no God.  Only randomness could create something like that.  Very cool post btw.  Found this site recently, and visit everyday.  I’ve been preying for Wendy.  I hope all is well.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2052 hrs
   
   
   

3. I wonder how old it all is.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2056 hrs
   
   
   

4. ATV, me too buddy.  It fascinates me to no end.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2112 hrs
   
   
   

5. The real question ATV, isn’t how old it all is, but rather… “if we’re looking at Galaxies that are 6 billion years old, what and where are they now?”

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2243 hrs
   
   
   

6. Wagtube… I’m having trouble reconciling this:

   Obviously, there is no God… I’ve been preying for Wendy.

   I assume you mean “prayers” because if you are “preying” on my wife I’ll have to remove some of your limbs with serrated blades… But if there isn’t a God, who the heck are you praying to?

   Posted by Owen on August 25, 2009 at 2247 hrs
   
   
   

7. Great question J.  I honestly don’t think we, as humans, can really understand time when it is on a scale this large.  The 4th dimension is, imo, a variable lost on us.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 25, 2009 at 2248 hrs
   
   
   

8. Ooops.  That’s quite a difference in one vowel.  Sorry about that.  I should have /sarc my post on the universe.  When I finished with astronomy in grad school, it was impossible for me to think that the universe was random and not created.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 26, 2009 at 0839 hrs
   
   
   

9. ATV said: I wonder how old it all is.

   Cosmologists say the known universe is about 13.5 billion years old.

   Given the last 10,000 years to roam around, modern man is just the latest blink in timeline longer than most of us ever think about.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 26, 2009 at 1231 hrs
   
   
   

10. I was going to make the joke about budget numbers. John beat me to it.

    Posted by Aaron on August 26, 2009 at 1805 hrs
    
    
    

11. The Andromeda galaxy will eat our galaxy in billions of years according to a NOVA’s documentary Monster of the Milky Way (PBS).  Our tiny solar system will then join Andromeda peacefully, be pummeled/vaporized, or be flung out into the outer voids. The film also explains that each galaxy has a black hole, which is being hypothesized to a be a form of galaxy size regulator. Even our galaxy has a black hole at the center.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 26, 2009 at 1928 hrs
    
    
    

12. LOL! I have not seen Nova in a while, and I think that would be refreshing to see a show detail astronomical phenomena w/o detailing what would happen if it went off close to the earth.

    Every such show on the History Channel spends quite a bit of time describing what would happen if (e.g.) a gamma ray burster set off on hte edge of our atmosphere. I grow tired of that.

    As far as the fourth dimension of time, it is not lost on us. In order to plan a meeting we need essentially a time and a place—it is not enough information to just to set a place.

    Posted by Marcus Aurelius on August 26, 2009 at 2108 hrs
    
    
    

13. MA said:  I think that would be refreshing to see a show detail astronomical phenomena w/o detailing what would happen if it went off close to the earth.

    Check out the show called “The Universe” 8 pm Tuesdays on the History Channel.  There are new episodes playing now. And they usually lead into it at 7 with a rerun ep.

    I believe the Science Channel has something similar on at the same time too.

    Can ya tell I like this stuff? lol

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 26, 2009 at 2221 hrs
    
    
    

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