Hubble yesterday got some new binoculars...that can see some 500m years into the past short of the BIG BANG. Its previous eyesight could see ancient stars and die in the 800m year range...now two more telescopes and voila!!...we see the beginning of the Universe from Hubble...this is progress. But at what point does distance start getting measured in years rather than km?

Playing the stock market without insider info...is like buying a cow in the moonlight.

ooh no,fuda na Hi-Lo,are you sure you want to go into this.......??

i mean this debate usually goes on n on n on.....it has never stopped to generate controversy

Trs.....that's insightful

I mean fundamental analysis,you get me?

Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health,its management and competitive advantages,and its competitors

@ Hi-Lo,

This is how:

Starting from our Solar System,the distances from the sun to planet:


Mercury is 58,000,000km
Venus is 108,000,000km
Earth is 150,000,000km
Mars is 228,000,000km
Jupiter is 778,000,000km
Saturn is 1,430,000,000,000km
Uranus is 2,870,000,000,000km
Neptune is 4,500,000,000,000km
Pluto is 5,900,000,000,000km

Although some idiotic scientist in 2006 declared that Pluto is not a planet...i had a difficult time convincing my nephew that pluto is not a planet,yet he was refering to a book..

the Sun is the closest star from any of the planets in the solar system.

the closest star (or system) to our solar system is called the Alpha Centrauri which is located at 41,200,000,000,000km or 41,200billion km from Earth

Our Solar System where the planet earth is is in a cloud of gas and particles called the Milky Way Galaxy containing about 200 billion stars. This cloud is in form of a disk with a diameter equal to 946,100,000,000,000,000km or 946,100,000 billion km. the thickness of the cloud is 9,461,000,000,000,000km or 9,461,000 billion km.

As you can see the figures have now started to get out of hand due to the immensity of the separation!!

Once this happens another unit called the Light Year is used. This is the distance covered by travelling light in one year and it is equivalent to 300,000x3600x24x365km. This is equal to 9,461,000,000,000km = 1light year

As you can see the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000light years and its thickness is 1000light years.

The closest galaxy the Adromeda is located at 23,652,000,000,000,000,000km which is equivalent to 2,500,000light years from the Milky Way galaxy.

If you were to consider a star being born in say 10 galaxies away from the Milky Way then we are talking of a distance in excess of 260,172,000,000,000,000,000km or 27,500,000light years. If you see the light of this star in your telescope,then you are looking at the historic birth of that star 27,500,000 years ago!!!!

Remember the universe has trillions upon trillions of galaxies. At some point within a couple of hundreds of galaxies the distances are so immense that soon the light year unit gets out of hand. i dont know which unit the scientist now use.


NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB

kweli...

but with light traveling through different media....

the speed would vary ..............

won't it....???

I'm the real Massey F.....shut your mouth

@ TRS,

thats right...due to the limited nature of our technological advances here on earth,nobody can really say anything authoritatively about stuff out there in space....not NASA,not Russians,not Japanese,not anyone. So the theories that have worked so well on earth and objects very near (like the moon)can only approximate when it comes to bodies very far away in the galaxies....thats why the figures are fabulous and things sound like fiction....you will no doubt have heard of the massive black hole suspected to be at the very center of our galaxy,the Milky Way!.....who believes there are black holes out there..?

@ Kingfisher,

i am not an astronomer and i only quoted the much that is already known...the scientists have been using different methods of determining the interplanetary and intergalactic distances of the closer and far away ones....

Some of the methods that they use,you will find them here: http://www.astronomynotes.com/galaxy/chindex.htm: http://www.astronomynotes.com/galaxy/s7.htm: http://www.spacetoday.or...ons/HubbleConstant.html

More often than not the ditances that they have calculated using the same methods for small distances (upto 300million kilometres) are within the acceptable limits of computation errors....A good example is the Path Finder craft that was sent to Mars (230million kilometres from earth). This distance was used to calculate the fuel of the space craft required,the speed limits,the jouney time etc. once the PF landed and sent a signal back to earth it took about13 minutes for the signal to be received on earth. This confirms the accuracy of their computation methods.

@ shaft,

You are right that in different mediums the speed of light may change,but the changes are insignificant when we consider the space mainly because most of the space is considered a vacuum. So fall all practical and experimental purposes the speed of light is considered constant and therefore at a constant propagation frequency only the wavelength changes....




NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB

a curious question on this topic is: if am seeing my past that long ago when i look at the distant stars/galaxies,what would happen if i (hypothetically) had the ability to travel there at this instant? would i see two of me?

Bludrip

@ drzhivago,

which place is 'there'? a point in space or an infinitely far off galaxy?

If you contemplate traveling at speed of light you may never reach there....reason: as you approach the speed of light you disappear. this is consistent with the concept of the 'space shrinkage' as a result of very high speed....at low speeds it is negligible and insignificant...

BTW there is no known matter be it animate or inanimate which has ever travelled at a speed of light....only electrons can achieve 90% of the speed of light when accelerated through an extremely high electric field...


NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB