The Universe is Not Expanding. What is it Doing?

[rhonjonParticipant]

 

According to NASA, Andromeda will collide with our galaxy in 4.5 billion years, and in 10 billion years, these two spiral galaxies will form an elliptic galaxy with their respective black holes becoming binary black holes orbiting one another.

I am fascinated, yet puzzled, by the idea that the Milky Way is on a

collision course with Andromeda.  This seems to preclude the idea of

universal expansion. If some galaxies are moving apart while others

are moving closer, we need a theory about what is happening in the

cosmos that takes both phenomenon into account.

[jakelafortParticipant]

It is fairly evident from only a cursory examination of contemporary cosmology that the standard model is gonna be defenestrated.

The latest discoveries from James are pretty wild.

[rhonjonParticipant]

James? Give me a first name and I’ll look him up. A title?

[jakelafortParticipant]

James Webb telescope.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/world/webb-telescope-massive-early-galaxies-scn/index.html

There has been a bunch of shocking stuff and its use is in its infancy.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Not only is the Universe expanding but the rate of expansion is accelerating.

All objects that have mass (mass not weight) will exert a “pull” on each other when close enough to each other. Think of the moon and the Earth and the Sun. The Earth “thinks” it is shooting in a straight line through Space. But is it being pulled towards the Sun because of that star’s Mass which curves the Space around it. Imagine a mattress the size of many football fields. Place a bowling ball to represent our Sun somewhere on it. It will bend or warp the area around itself. A tennis ball (Earth) will travel in a straight line until it nears the bowling ball and will then keep traveling around the bent path created by the mass of the bowling ball. The Mass of both objects will prevent the tennis ball escaping from this path. When a marble (moon), traveling in a straight line, approaches the tennis ball (Earth) the same thing happens. The Earth traps the moon in its Gravity (the dent in the mattress) and the moon travels around it. Over time this effect weakness. The moon is “escaping” from the Earth’s gravity by about 3 inches every 10 years. As the Sun burns up its Hydrogen is will eventually collapse in on itself.

There are billions of stars (Suns) with planets on the Milky Way mattress where the same thing is happening.

Think of Andromeda as being another mattress but about twice the size of the Milky Way. The same thing is happening there. But the Milky Way and Andromeda are “close” enough to each other that both mattresses pull on each other. Just like the Earth and the Moon. They are caught in each other’s field of gravity, given that both are massive objects.  Eventually they will collide with each other.

There are billions of galaxies in the Cosmos and some are thousands of times more massive than our Milky Way. Most of them are so far apart that there is no gravitational pull going on between them. What happens when the Universe expands is not that the galaxies are themselves expanding but that the space between the galaxies is expanding.

Space itself is expanding. The analogy of blowing up a balloon is often used. Get a regular party balloon and using a sharpie put 10 random dots on it. Then pump it up. As it inflates the dots appear to move away from each other. But the dots have done nothing. They are still on the same spot you drew them on. It is the skin of the balloon that has expanded. If you have 3 dots in a row and standing on dot 1 it will appear that dot 3 is moving away from you twice as fast as dot 2 is. If you have a billion dots the same observation can be made by standing on any one dot and looking out into space at any other dot.

We know understand that dark matter does not properly explain the accelerating rate of expansion and this idea may be dismissed soon. But eventually, if humans are still around in a few billion years, one of them will look up into the night sky and see nothing. Just empty Space. We are here at the right time to try to explain the Universe to itself. Well, something like that…..

[UnseenParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Space itself is expanding. The analogy of blowing up a balloon is often used. Get a regular party balloon and using a sharpie put 10 random dots on it. Then pump it up. As it inflates the dots appear to move away from each other. But the dots have done nothing. They are still on the same spot you drew them on. It is the skin of the balloon that has expanded. If you have 3 dots in a row and standing on dot 1 it will appear that dot 3 is moving away from you twice as fast as dot 2 is. If you have a billion dots the same observation can be made by standing on any one dot and looking out into space at any other dot.

We know understand that dark matter does not properly explain the accelerating rate of expansion and this idea may be dismissed soon. But eventually, if humans are still around in a few billion years, one of them will look up into the night sky and see nothing. Just empty Space. We are here at the right time to try to explain the Universe to itself. Well, something like that…..

Ah, but if I substitute a small hand-drawn circle on the balloon, the circle will get bigger as you blow up the balloon, so ipso facto, the space within atoms should expand as well. No?

I find it both amazing and depressing that future intelligent life may think what we thought until not so long ago, which is that the Milky Way, our home galaxy, was the universe. With some luck, they may have records from a much earlier time explaining to them what they cannot see.

They are likely to think it’s all superstitious nonsense.

[rhonjonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Not only is the Universe expanding but the rate of expansion is accelerating. All objects that have mass (mass not weight) will exert a “pull” on each other when close enough to each other. Think of the moon and the Earth and the Sun. The Earth “thinks” it is shooting in a straight line through Space. But is it being pulled towards the Sun because of that star’s Mass which curves the Space around it. Imagine a mattress the size of many football fields. Place a bowling ball to represent our Sun somewhere on it. It will bend or warp the area around itself. A tennis ball (Earth) will travel in a straight line until it nears the bowling ball and will then keep traveling around the bent path created by the mass of the bowling ball. The Mass of both objects will prevent the tennis ball escaping from this path. When a marble (moon), traveling in a straight line, approaches the tennis ball (Earth) the same thing happens. The Earth traps the moon in its Gravity (the dent in the mattress) and the moon travels around it. Over time this effect weakness. The moon is “escaping” from the Earth’s gravity by about 3 inches every 10 years. As the Sun burns up its Hydrogen is will eventually collapse in on itself. There are billions of stars (Suns) with planets on the Milky Way mattress where the same thing is happening. Think of Andromeda as being another mattress but about twice the size of the Milky Way. The same thing is happening there. But the Milky Way and Andromeda are “close” enough to each other that both mattresses pull on each other. Just like the Earth and the Moon. They are caught in each other’s field of gravity, given that both are massive objects. Eventually they will collide with each other. There are billions of galaxies in the Cosmos and some are thousands of times more massive than our Milky Way. Most of them are so far apart that there is no gravitational pull going on between them. What happens when the Universe expands is not that the galaxies are themselves expanding but that the space between the galaxies is expanding. Space itself is expanding. The analogy of blowing up a balloon is often used. Get a regular party balloon and using a sharpie put 10 random dots on it. Then pump it up. As it inflates the dots appear to move away from each other. But the dots have done nothing. They are still on the same spot you drew them on. It is the skin of the balloon that has expanded. If you have 3 dots in a row and standing on dot 1 it will appear that dot 3 is moving away from you twice as fast as dot 2 is. If you have a billion dots the same observation can be made by standing on any one dot and looking out into space at any other dot. We know understand that dark matter does not properly explain the accelerating rate of expansion and this idea may be dismissed soon. But eventually, if humans are still around in a few billion years, one of them will look up into the night sky and see nothing. Just empty Space. We are here at the right time to try to explain the Universe to itself. Well, something like that…..

Yes, I had this explained to me using the raisin bread dough model and the rubber band model. I’d really like to see more about what has been discovered by the Webb telescope. So far, I’ve seen that it has discovered galaxies in places where none should be. This may have some effect on the theory that the universe is expanding because there’s not enough matter to keep it together. If there is actually more matter than what was thought, then scientists may want to advance a new theory.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  Reg the Fronkey Farmer. Reason: to seperate the reply from the post

[UnseenParticipant]

@rhonjon

In another post I explained how to separate your response from what you are quoting. Who’s gonna read that huge blob of text to figure out where your reply begins?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

[UnseenParticipant]

The funny thing about Andromeda “colliding” with the Milky Way is that since everything in each galaxy is so far apart the two galaxies will largely pass through each other. There will be some collisions here and there for sure, but in the way two ripples on a pond can go through each other, so it will be with the two galaxies.

[UnseenParticipant]

The future looks bleak…

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Rhonjon,

The Universe is Not Expanding. What is it Doing?

It just is what it is, as as people dejectedly say nowadays about things that do not have to be that way. 😁

More seriously, expanding does not necessarily mean everything is expanding at the same pace or direction. Hence, individual entities within the Universe could bump together while the Universe as a whole could still be expanding.

[rhonjonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Rhonjon,

The Universe is Not Expanding. What is it Doing?

It just is what it is, as as people dejectedly say nowadays about things that do not have to be that way. 😁 More seriously, expanding does not necessarily mean everything is expanding at the same pace or direction. Hence, individual entities within the Universe could bump together while the Universe as a whole could still be expanding.

That is one way to interpret it.

[Author]

Posts