[Discussion] How small are we?

[gas83091]

the music was creepy as hell!! , yet strangely mesmerizing

 

[Iruka]

I dont really Believe this why you say? Scientist say the farthest thing is still traveling and its not even 1000 lightyears away from where we are. But yet they no its over 1billion milky waves. That dosen't make sense and is the largest known star im pretty sure its far away and if they can reach it how in the world could they measure it? by looking at it through a camra?

... wut?

• 
  Scientist say the farthest thing is still traveling

Why do they think that the universe is expanding? There is a handy phenomenon called the Redshift (it's just an expansion on the Doppler Effect). People observe the spectrum of light given off by distant sources, then by comparing that to a known emission spectrum they can find differences. If the spectrum from the distant source is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then the source is thought to be moving away.

• 
  But yet they no its over 1billion milky waves

I'm a little confused about what you're saying. How do they come up with the idea that there are over one billion milky ways? The Milky Way is the name of our galaxy so it's quite unique. I'm not overly sure of how they estimate the number of galaxies so that could be something to look up.

• 
  how in the world could they measure it? by looking at it through a camra?

High powered telescopes. One method of locating things at great distances is to take a set of images at regular time periods. There is a method where thousands of images are captured every so often then compared. Any differences in an image from one time-stamp to the next gets investigated. It works because a small body orbiting a larger body will occasionally block out light emitted from the large body. This causes a slight change in the images and can be used to determine if a small body exists around the larger body.


It's been a long time since I was taught this so I've quite possibly made mistakes. Feel free to point them out.

 

[Venus]

There was another document I watched and it showed that our entire galaxy is a dot inside a vast area of stars. So we are less then dots, we are nothing but mere specs, dust. On a epic proportion, it seems that we're nothing but bacteria in the universe.

 

[zesto]

i love this thread very interesting.

 

[zesto]

but are those giant star in our solar system as well. (all those after the sun)

 

[FXW]

We are infinitely small compared to the infinitely big, yet, we are also infinitely big compared to the infinitely small (quarks, etc.). So, are we big or small?

 

[Guilty as Sin]

I remember a quote about the grandeur of the universe somewhere. It went something like this:

The size of the universe and all its planets, stars, and galaxies is not so much a testimony to how small we are but to how great God is.

 

['Toxic]

but are those giant star in our solar system as well. (all those after the sun)

Hmm, I don't know, well they should be since there planets within out galaxy

There was another document I watched and it showed that our entire galaxy is a dot inside a vast area of stars. So we are less then dots, we are nothing but mere specs, dust. On a epic proportion, it seems that we're nothing but bacteria in the universe.

You mean the universe? Indeed, our solar system is inside the milky way, we're a small dot in the arm of our barred spiral galaxy. They say we're a barred spiral galaxy but even the scientist aren't so sure since we cant get that far out yet.

 

[Mante]

Astronomy? I must be jealous xD

 

[Zenryoku]

Mind blowingly scary yet exciting to see that scale

 

[Olorin]

I know how small and insignificant we are

That's why ppl believe all kinds of nonsense that tells non-facts that say otherwise but ppl who believe in that don't understand the reality they live in all that well and insist on being blind ... Our existence from the perspective of the universe is almost nonexistent ... FACT!