Scale of the universe...

[Core]

I hope it's okay to post this. I came across this page which is pretty neat, and figured many here might find it interesting. Basically you can zoom in and out of various things in the universe, from insects to planets, and kind of get a rough idea of their scale and learn a tidbit. I don't know if the scientific facts here are all flawless but they're presented in a manner which provides an amount of entertainment value even to those who, like me, aren't really all that well versed in science.

http://images.4channel.org/f/src/589217_scale_of_universe_enhanced.swf

 

[Trekker4747]

I've seen this, or something very like it, before. It's really incredibly awesome how just utterly fucking huge the universe is and that's not even getting into how utterly fucking tiny things are.

But the scale of the universe itself is what is amazing and when you consider the sheer amount of stuff that is out there and space it's really unfathomable that our piddly little planet, one of billions upon billions upon billions upon billions that is out there, is the only one with life on it.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

I saw this a couple of days ago. Some of the descriptive comments are kind of dopey, but it's a nice interactive and animated illustration of the... well, scale of everything. It puts things in perspective. And by 'in perspective,' I mean it shows just how unfathomable so much is. And that's just the stuff we know.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, the descriptors are very dopey. It's like they were written by the offspring of Joey Tribiani and and Opie. Incidentally, I think the Water Molecule has two too many electrons in it.

 

[stoneroses]

The universe is infinite

 

[Trekker4747]

The universe is infinite

No, no it isn't. It's very, very, very big, and expanding the "edge" of it we cannot see and never can see as the objects beyond the observable universe is possibly moving faster than light but there is an "edge" to the universe of sorts.

But other than all of that the link more deals with the observable universe which most certainly has an "edge."

 

[C.E. Evans]

Ohh...that actually made me a bit giddy.

Cool, though...

We still have so much to learn about our Universe...whether or not dark matter is behind its continuous expansion, will it end in "The Big Rip," or if our Universe is just one of many universes separated by enormous gulfs of space that are too vast to comprehend...

 

[sojourner]

Space is really big...

 

[trekkiedane]

I've seen this, or something very like it, before.

Could have been Nikon's Universcale.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Awesome. In the true sense of the word.

our piddly little planet, one of billions upon billions upon billions upon billions that is out there, is the only one with life on it.

You have documentation to back this up?

but there is an "edge" to the universe of sorts.

You have documentation to back this up?

 

[FPAlpha]

Saw something similar (or it was that exact site) and it is awesome.

Whenever i see something in scale in the universe it always blows my mind.. recently i saw a scale depiction of our sun (which seems massive to us) next to a giant sun and the tiny blip in the side of the picture was our sun vs the mega giant whose curvature in the picture was barely noticeable (i think they said that our solar system could fit into that giant).

Other things like black holes which have enough mass and gravity to suck in light (!) or gamma ray bursts are just so frightening that it's best not to think about it.

The universe is indeed friggin' huge and there so much energy tossed around on such scales that it's barely comprehensible to a human.. simple numbers just won't do to grasp the enormity (and i'm so sad to be born so early before man invents space travel and can see all that for himself )

 

[Trekker4747]

I've seen this, or something very like it, before.

Could have been Nikon's Universcale.

I've seen that one too, but researching I had also seen the earlier version of the OP link, even has the same layout and silly descriptors.

Awesome. In the true sense of the word.

our piddly little planet, one of billions upon billions upon billions upon billions that is out there, is the only one with life on it.

You have documentation to back this up?

There are millions if not billions of galaxies astronomers estimate (a tiny piece of the sky revealed as many as 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field image) multiply that number by the 100-300 billion stars there are in our one galaxy alone (estimated) and you get a lot of damn stars in the universe. Simply logic should tell you that out of that huge number the likelihood that we're the only one with life on it is unreasonable.

but there is an "edge" to the universe of sorts.

You have documentation to back this up?

There is an edge to visible universe, it's how deep into it we can see because the light has had sufficient time to reach us. Look in the sky at night, you're seeing the edge of the universe. What lies beyond that we do not know what but every night we're seeing a tiny bit more of the universe.

 

[mimic]

Well, it feels appropriate to post this video, because Hank Green, one of my favorite youtubers, has been obsessed with whether or not the universe has an edge for the past week or so. AND he made a video about it yesterday.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0o6hQLcSRc&feature=g-u-u&context=G208c0c0FUAAAAAAAAAA[/yt]

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Space is really big...

Space Is Deep
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGwq620thqo[/YT]

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ And it's beautiful.

There are millions if not billions of galaxies astronomers estimate (a tiny piece of the sky revealed as many as 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field image) multiply that number by the 100-300 billion stars there are in our one galaxy alone (estimated) and you get a lot of damn stars in the universe. Simply logic should tell you that out of that huge number the likelihood that we're the only one with life on it is unreasonable.

Okay, I misunderstood what you posted. I thought you meant the opposite.

There is an edge to visible universe, it's how deep into it we can see because the light has had sufficient time to reach us. Look in the sky at night, you're seeing the edge of the universe. What lies beyond that we do not know what but every night we're seeing a tiny bit more of the universe.

A limit to the observable universe is not the same as the universe having an edge. The larger context in which what we see exists must be infinite.

Well, it feels appropriate to post this video, because Hank Green, one of my favorite youtubers, has been obsessed with whether or not the universe has an edge for the past week or so. AND he made a video about it yesterday.

Pretty good. I think "some infinities are larger than others" is a cute way of putting it, but, of course, the great thing about infinities is that they are all the same size (which is bigger, the set of all integers or the set of all odd integers?).

 

[smiki]

I've seen this, or something very like it, before.

Could have been Nikon's Universcale.

Ah, yes. I knew I've seen something similar before, and this Nikon's Universcale thingy appears to be it (and this Nikon's seems more profesional). Quite awesome indeed. Although it almost gives you vertigo.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtaWkLFfevc[/yt]

 

[1001001]

Pretty good. I think "some infinities are larger than others" is a cute way of putting it, but, of course, the great thing about infinities is that they are all the same size (which is bigger, the set of all integers or the set of all odd integers?).

That is not correct.

There are different sizes of infinities.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-infinity-comes-in-different-sizes

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I always love things like that. The ones comparing various star sizes are really neat too. And that taught me something new today. I learned I never want to come face to face with a F***ing Japanese Spider Crab!

 

[Dart]

There is an edge to visible universe, it's how deep into it we can see because the light has had sufficient time to reach us. Look in the sky at night, you're seeing the edge of the universe. What lies beyond that we do not know what but every night we're seeing a tiny bit more of the universe.

A limit to the observable universe is not the same as the universe having an edge. The larger context in which what we see exists must be infinite.

Are you're saying that the Universe is infinite because what is outside the Universe doesn't exist? I'd go along with that.

However it's also true that the Universe started in a Big Bang and has been getting bigger ever since, so in way it's not infinite.