Monday 30 November 2009

First Question

Q:
Hey Dave, are the suns/ galaxies on the outer edge of the universe moving outward faster than the inner suns/ galaxies?

A:
sorta.

The universe is expanding, with every galaxy in the universe getting further away from every other galaxy. The image that is most appropriate is stretching a rubber sheet - every point on the sheet is getting further away from every other point.

To answer your question: consider the rubber sheet again and pretend your galaxy is somewhere on it. If a galaxy is right night to you, then the stretching is only going to move it a little further away. If another galaxy is a lot further away then the stretching is going to make it move away much faster.

Spacetime is stretching in a similar way: every bit of space is expanding, so the more space between us and an object, the faster it seems to be going away. Note this doesn't mean we're in the centre of the universe: anybody in any galaxy anywhere will notice the more distant galaxies are moving away faster than the closer galaxies. Does that help? :)

Q:
Yep thx. So does than mean all the galaxies than people r studying r red shifting?

A:
Almost always yes - in fact, astronomers use redshift as a measure of distance. The exception is that when galaxies are real close, this effect is quite small, and so the proper motion of galaxies (due to gravity etc) is stronger at short ranges than the expansion of the universe, hence it's possible for nearby galaxies to be heading towards us, i.e. blueshifted.

Q:
Ah ok, cool. Thx 4 that.

1 comment:

  1. It seems like we only ever speak in horizontal terms when referring to space. What happens when we go straight up? Are there other galaxies way above us?

    - Graeme S.

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