Ok I’ve been meaning to ask this in the Space community or the NoStupidQuestions community. I’ve seen this news circling around the past 2 weeks and have been watching videos of people talking about it.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think the gist is that astronomers discovered with the JWST that some galaxies at the end of the observable universe appear to be younger than they are supposed to be. So it kinda blows a hole in the big bang expansion where objects farther away should be older. And that somehow ties in with the theory that our universe is inside a blackhole.
It’s fascinating but I don’t know what to do with that information other than just be fascinated. I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson who said “what does it matter to us? nothing”, because us being in a blackhole doesn’t change anything in the scale of our universe.
From what I’ve seen, it’s not that they’re “young” galaxies, but that they shouldn’t have had enough time to develop if the universe were truly so crazily homogenous from the big bang. It doesn’t necessarily disprove the big bang, just means the universe might not be as “smooth” as previous assumptions.
Any scientist worth their salt should be readily able to admit it was always an assumption, just one that proved congruent with observations until now.
I’ve always liked this theory, imagining the cosmos is just a series/web/tree of black holes draining into the next. Everything gets recycled eventually.
Nah, that would require spacetime to curve a lot more than it does. It’d also have to curve in the other direction (local spacetime is hyperbolic, “local” as in basically all of the observable universe). Calculations show the universe must be several times larger than the observable universe (I forgot the exact numbers, but iirc it’s in the single digits or low teens) in order to match even Hubble observations, let alone JWST observations.
IMO, it’s likely that the universe just isn’t as homogenous as assumed, or maybe that certain geometries that span across spacetime or movement of the galaxies simply make us think the galaxies are further away than they actually are, or both.
There is little to no reason to doubt the measurements within the galaxy, as that’s not far enough for any presence of dark matter to really skew things, nor does dark energy have a marked effect within areas of enough mass, like within galaxies. Though yeah there is some wiggle room on further measurements, hence the recent news furthering the idea that our galaxy sits in a less dense region. We’ve had evidence for probably multiple decades, but nothing is certain until it’s proved in several unquestionably accurate ways.
Ok I’ve been meaning to ask this in the Space community or the NoStupidQuestions community. I’ve seen this news circling around the past 2 weeks and have been watching videos of people talking about it.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think the gist is that astronomers discovered with the JWST that some galaxies at the end of the observable universe appear to be younger than they are supposed to be. So it kinda blows a hole in the big bang expansion where objects farther away should be older. And that somehow ties in with the theory that our universe is inside a blackhole.
It’s fascinating but I don’t know what to do with that information other than just be fascinated. I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson who said “what does it matter to us? nothing”, because us being in a blackhole doesn’t change anything in the scale of our universe.
From what I’ve seen, it’s not that they’re “young” galaxies, but that they shouldn’t have had enough time to develop if the universe were truly so crazily homogenous from the big bang. It doesn’t necessarily disprove the big bang, just means the universe might not be as “smooth” as previous assumptions.
Any scientist worth their salt should be readily able to admit it was always an assumption, just one that proved congruent with observations until now.
I’ve always liked this theory, imagining the cosmos is just a series/web/tree of black holes draining into the next. Everything gets recycled eventually.
It meshes well with my occasional feeling that reality is just circling the drain.
Clockwise or counterclockwise?
I gave it some thought and got vertigo. I’m going with counterclockwise.
I think it depends if you’re in Australia.
note that we’re all circling the sun but still not getting closer an inch per year
actually, we are inside the dream of someone else, and that one too is again in a dream …
Am I a man dreaming I’m a butterfly?
Maybe the far away galaxies are just the close galaxies seen from the other side?
Nah, that would require spacetime to curve a lot more than it does. It’d also have to curve in the other direction (local spacetime is hyperbolic, “local” as in basically all of the observable universe). Calculations show the universe must be several times larger than the observable universe (I forgot the exact numbers, but iirc it’s in the single digits or low teens) in order to match even Hubble observations, let alone JWST observations.
IMO, it’s likely that the universe just isn’t as homogenous as assumed, or maybe that certain geometries that span across spacetime or movement of the galaxies simply make us think the galaxies are further away than they actually are, or both.
I was joking. Unless it was genius of course.
I seem to remember that the science isn’t totally settled on the distance to stars in our own galaxy so I am quite chill about cosmology.
There is little to no reason to doubt the measurements within the galaxy, as that’s not far enough for any presence of dark matter to really skew things, nor does dark energy have a marked effect within areas of enough mass, like within galaxies. Though yeah there is some wiggle room on further measurements, hence the recent news furthering the idea that our galaxy sits in a less dense region. We’ve had evidence for probably multiple decades, but nothing is certain until it’s proved in several unquestionably accurate ways.