Celestia Forums

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is finally finished after 8 years of scanning .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... rse126.xml

Impressive stuff.

Goonster

Now here's a thought which never occurred to me before...

The page you reference above has a very interesting statement which simply caused my jaw to drop a bit.

The furthest object that has been detected is more than 14 billion light years away, but no one really knows exactly how far the cosmos stretches beyond that - mostly because light from any further away would take longer than the universe has existed to reach us here on Earth.

No surprise to you brainy types, I'm sure, but this is really a mind-boggling statement to me. I never thought about the Universe in this way before.
I simply assumed that what we see is all there is to see. If we can't see anything beyond 14 billion years away, then there must not exist anything that far away. Right?
Now, you've got the old mush residing on top of my head reeling again.

There could actually be any number of other universes, or stars, or galaxies or anything outside of the boundary. Yes?
Mind-boggling. Sorry, but this just jump-started my older neurons a bit.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

I don`t suppose you`ve got any young neurons left!

Goonster

Goonster wrote:I don`t suppose you`ve got any young neurons left!

Goonster

No, they all rebelled and left in haste when they found out what kind of neighborhood they were living in.

Seriously though, this is simply a fascinating thought for this old Brain-Dead geezer. It sparked one of those
moments of enlightenment in my poor, old, drug-ridden brain.

Many thanks for the post here. Always enjoy learning (or perceiving) something new in the world. When you're
my age, you gotta get your kicks wherever you can. This whole chain of thought is new to me, so you could say
that I really have broadened my horizons again.

Thanks again, Brain-Dead

Glad you liked it.
Here`s a bit more to get your head around-

http://space.newscientist.com/channel/s ... verse.html

As the universe is so big who are we to say there is no life out there?

Goonster

Goonster wrote:Glad you liked it.
Here`s a bit more to get your head around-

Appreciate it, but the discussion sounds a lot like this place on occasion.
At any rate, more interesting stuff... Thanks.

I assume your bold `this' is a link to another page but it doesn`t seem to be working.

Goonster

Goonster wrote:I assume your bold `this' is a link to another page but it doesn`t seem to be working.

Goonster

No, not a link...

What I meant was this forum. You know, the one you are reading now.

Oh right . Sorry.

Goonster