Space... as we know it in 2011... :)

Scientists started with it in 1998, and this is what how far they've come in 2011, next one will be done in 2014!

Every pixel you see represents a Galaxy, or Galaxy Cluster.

http://www.sdss3.org






Just amazing...

thats amazing. but i still wanna know if physics is the same anywhere else in the universe as it is on earth... thats the only thing about space that keeps me wondering.. scientists should get on that

thats amazing. but i still wanna know if physics is the same anywhere else in the universe as it is on earth... thats the only thing about space that keeps me wondering.. scientists should get on that

Not sure I understand the question... We pretty much assume the same physical laws apply everywhere in the (observable) universe. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to know anything about what's there.
Simple example: we assume a certain object is made mostly of hydrogen, because the light it gives off is in wavelengths we associate with that element. But if physics were different elsewhere...

thats amazing. but i still wanna know if physics is the same anywhere else in the universe as it is on earth... thats the only thing about space that keeps me wondering.. scientists should get on that

Well. we -do- know that the physics inside black holes is different then outside, because of the super massive gravity inside time gets slowed down inside, so physics as we know it are not the same -everywhere-

Well, what we currently know regarding physics is not the tip of the iceberg. We'll probably learn more new things with further development in quantum physics. That's where it gets interesting, and things currently not thought possible can happen.

We know that physics works the same everywhere except for at the extremes, like the speed of light or the mass of a black hole, because we've done accurate calculations of the orbits and movements of other planets and stars.

We know that physics works the same everywhere except for at the extremes, like the speed of light or the mass of a black hole, because we've done accurate calculations of the orbits and movements of other planets and stars.

CLASSICAL physics doesn't work for extremes. Relativistical and quantum physics apply to those limits (high speeds or very small size).

The physics of the universe (one body revolving around another of greater mass or having a reverse electrical charge on an orbital plane) is a constant from the very big to the very small.

those galaxies in the pictures posted, WHEN did they exist? do they still exist?

those galaxies in the pictures posted, WHEN did they exist? do they still exist?

More than likely... no. What we see is the light from x amount of years ago, depending on how many light years away from us they are.

For instance, a galaxy 4 billion light years away would be over 4 billion years older than what we see. That Galaxy may be there, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the same as the galaxy we see. It could have changed many, many times over. It may have collided with another galaxy. It may have even been completely overtaken by a black hole by this point in time.

What we see of that 4-billion-light-year-away galaxy is what it was 4 billion years ago, not what it is today.

thats amazing. but i still wanna know if physics is the same anywhere else in the universe as it is on earth... thats the only thing about space that keeps me wondering.. scientists should get on that

The only THEORY that supports that is the one where there are other parallel universes with different laws of physics. And even if you consider worm holes, time gates, or amazing stuff like that that gets found, it'd still work from the very same physics we have here, only with the proper conditions. Universal constants are that, universal. However, outside our universe... WHO KNOWS!

Lol, yeah i know how light years work, but wat i meant by that post was, it seems like we've mapped this much out of millions of pixels, but we still have billions and billions of years to go. just goes to show...

Why are we assuming its a sphere, or that it even has an end?

Why are we assuming its a sphere

Welcome to physics.It's an Indisputable fact that EVERYTHING is a sphere. Even you.


Seriously though, Its probably not assuming- its that the light that reaches our telescopes is all travelling at the same speed- so we can tell roughly how far away it came from, and conveniently the light reaching at any given point in time will be from the same distance away (if you can filter out light from other sources anyway), thus the edge of what we can see is always going to be roughly spherical

I don't like how they think that everything must be a sphere, like Tay stated. When I think of space and galaxies, sphere does really NOT come to mind. If anything, I really think it's limitless and infinite. There's so much we still have yet to understand about anything that's outside of our own world. Coincidentally, I am taking Astrology right now, though that's about stars, not so much as about galaxies or planets.

I felt like researching about its shape..
For shape:
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html Flat.
For critical density:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hba...enpar.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_M...ropy_Probe

Welcome to physics.It's an Indisputable fact that EVERYTHING is a sphere. Even you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

More than likely... no. What we see is the light from x amount of years ago, depending on how many light years away from us they are.

For instance, a galaxy 4 billion light years away would be over 4 billion years older than what we see. That Galaxy may be there, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the same as the galaxy we see. It could have changed many, many times over. It may have collided with another galaxy. It may have even been completely overtaken by a black hole by this point in time.

What we see of that 4-billion-light-year-away galaxy is what it was 4 billion years ago, not what it is today.

Makes me wonder that if somehow we could see on a planet 4 billion light years away and saw no life, could present day there have life?(I think I just confused myself X_x)

Here's a better view. Each speck is a galaxy... total... wow.

Makes me wonder that if somehow we could see on a planet 4 billion light years away and saw no life, could present day there have life?(I think I just confused myself X_x)

The chances of that is very high.

In fact, by present day, there have probably been hundreds, thousands, or millions, if not billions or trillions of civilizations that have come to extinction in the galaxies we can see from our point in space.

You figure that the universe (according to Steven Hawking's latest assessment) is 14 billion years old. Because what we see in space as star-light is at most this ancient there is no way we could ever actually tell what is or isn't there without actually finding a way to get there that is fairly close to the Star Trek Warp Travel method of spacial folding to shorten the time frame of that travel.