Astronomy / Space Sheer scale of the universe.

Nagual

Nagual
This will no doubt have been mentioned before but this got posted on I Fu*king Love Science recently, and I wanted to share, in case there is a person or two who doesn't follow it.. :D

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An interactive version :Scale of the universe
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
It's beyond true comprehension for everyone. Even astronomers and astrophysicists (though I think few would admit, we're too comfortable with the mathematics and we have a rough idea that I think blinds us to our blindness) can't really grasp this.

But I think these do help to give us a flash of insight into what we don't understand, a momentary glimpse of what to us, seems the infinite. Douglas Adams said it best: Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
 

Rollo

R
Very hard to take in. Viewing the scale program I remember going to Rigel or if it was Betelgeuse in Frontier2 just to see that big star up close. It was indeed impressive.

Wonder if Dangerous will feature things like the Omega Centauri. A globular cluster (biiig blob of millions of stars) that, according to wikipedia, might be a core remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed with the Milky Way. Apparently the stars in the core of OC are only some 0.1 LY apart, so imagine being in that sector of space, bright stars everywhere. It's some 15,800 LY from here though...
 

Perseus

Perseus
Rollo said:
Very hard to take in. Viewing the scale program I remember going to Rigel or if it was Betelgeuse in Frontier2 just to see that big star up close. It was indeed impressive.

Wonder if Dangerous will feature things like the Omega Centauri. A globular cluster (biiig blob of millions of stars) that, according to wikipedia, might be a core remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed with the Milky Way. Apparently the stars in the core of OC are only some 0.1 LY apart, so imagine being in that sector of space, bright stars everywhere. It's some 15,800 LY from here though...
Click to expand...

I hope it is. I'll have to remember to take designer shades and factor50+ if I pass that way though.
 

Cosmos

C
I never get tired of seeing this stuff. wondering about early this morning it was a perfectly clear sky, street lights just turned off, as the sky turned from deep to light blue I looked at the stars.. Its truly humbling.

Perhaps when people say the best things in life are free, this might be one of them. :)
 

Neo-ST

Neo-ST
I think everybody should watch "Cosmic Voyage" from 1996, narrated by Morgan Freeman. Shows nicely the scale of not just "big" universe, but also the "small". Just then you come to realize how similar (or same?) they are, everything is so relative, pointless and significant at the same time. I'd call that a fourth dimension :) (or the fabric of the matrix if you watched the movie)
 
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