The Universe May Have 10 Times As Many Galaxies As We Thought

Megalith

Megalith

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Previous estimates suggested the existence of 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies, but apparently that data was way off, since new findings allege that the number has to be closer to a trillion based on how things are behaving in space. “…it boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the cosmos have yet to be studied.”

…astronomers used all available data to construct a 3-D map of the universe around us, which allowed them to chart the number of galaxies that existed at different periods in history — the farther away a telescope looks, the further back in time it looks, because we're seeing light that has had to travel longer distances to reach the lens. The team's mathematical models indicate that for the universe to behave as it does, there must be more than a trillion galaxies unaccounted for. Their results are set to be published soon in the Astrophysical Journal.
 
The term is infinity. You go twice as far as you can see, only to find you are not even half way as far as you thought you could go. It never ends. If it did then what? A wall? What is on the other side of the wall?

Infinity.
 
usually when astronomers speak of 'the universe' they speak of 'the observable universe'. trying to scientifically say anything about the universe beyond our observable event horizon is impossible. It could be Swiss cheese for all we know: there is no scientific way to test it.
 
K10 said:
Yes, There Have Been Aliens
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Wyodiver said:
Mathematically, it's impossible that life is unique to Earth.
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No. Read that article. What we can say is that if life has only ever appeared on Earth then life must be incredibly rare. Personally, I suspect it's quite common, but let's not go pretending we know things we don't.

Specifically, unless the probability for evolving a civilization on a habitable-zone planet is less than one in 10 billion trillion, then we are not the first.
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If any chance of "life" has a 1 in a billion chance, it's not possible for life to have not existed, exists now, or will exist in the future.

"Life," as I'm thinking, can be bacteria, all the way to sentient creatures.
 
If it gets any bigger they're going to have to start entertaining the possibility that the theories regarding the CMB need updating. If the universe is 10x as dense then its possible we're wrong about it's size, structure, formation, inflation or any number of other things. I much prefer a world where we are looking for new theories & explanations for things than one where we think we've figured everything out.
 
I think the word you're looking for is improbable.

No, it's just not mathematically possible. It's impossible for life elsewhere to not exist, behind our arbitrary time line, in the past, during our timeline, or in the future. Life will always exist in the Universe.


We aren't precious snowflakes.
 
While I'm not religious I am a Christian I still don't want to burn people at the stake. I just find that with every scientific discovery it just falls closer in with Gods plan and what He has told us.
The Bible tells us that the stars in the sky are uncountable even more so than the gains of sand on the earth, science proves this more every day.
I am all for space research but we as humans have only scratched the tip of what is capable here on earth and in our failed attempts we are destroying our home.
 
Wyodiver said:
I often wonder if scientific discoveries make ultra-religious people pine for the days when they could burn people at the stake.
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Since I hate religion but know the Lord Jesus Christ and that He created all things, nope. Why would I pine for the past when each day is a day closer to His return?
 
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ManofGod said:
Since I hate religion but know the Lord Jesus Christ and that He created all things, nope. Why would I pine for the past when each day is a day closer to His return?
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Why would he return?
 
There are always flukes in nature. Our planet could be one of them, the result of an extremely unlikely combination of natural coincidences that eventually lead to life. Or possibly we are the only life in the universe and are the result of some experiment by whatever you want to define as a God, for example we could be the only "life form" in a computer simulation to see how life evolves where to us our computer simulation is our universe where we are the only life.

Until we find another life form out there, it's impossible to calculate the odds life actually exists. You can't make any accurate estimation based on a sample size of 1.

Personally I think the universe is teeming with life, including our own solar system. The problem is getting the technology to get there and observe it. I bet in the next 50 years we will find another life form in our own solar system once the new space missions finally get off the ground, including the missions planned for probes on Europa, Ganymede, Callisto; all the water ocean moons in our solar system.

However the one thing that is still the unknown is intelligent life. Microbes or basic multicellular life could be everywhere, but having the right combination of events to allow for enough time to pass for microbes to evolve and develop intelligence, defined as self awareness, is a whole other argument. The problem for proof will always be distance, and as a result time. The time it takes at the speed of light to get anywhere outside our solar system, get measurement results, and get the answers back is mind boggling. I want to assume there is a lot of intelligent life in the universe, but the chances that it exists at the same time and the chances that it's close enough to interact with each other is sobering.

Until we find a way to cheat the speed of light, and get out there and find an extinct species, we probably won't ever have proof of other intelligent life.
 
ManofGod said:
Because He said he is coming again.
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I guess hes just hanging out in heaven until any real world problems come around. Never mind the extreme hunger in some countries, war torn middle east, cancer, natural disasters, etc..
 
AK0tA said:
While I'm not religious I am a Christian I still don't want to burn people at the stake. I just find that with every scientific discovery it just falls closer in with Gods plan and what He has told us.
The Bible tells us that the stars in the sky are uncountable even more so than the gains of sand on the earth, science proves this more every day.
I am all for space research but we as humans have only scratched the tip of what is capable here on earth and in our failed attempts we are destroying our home.
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You have a refreshing attitude for a Christian. I am agnostic through and through but I don't see why religion and science cannot coexist. Isn't the goal of both to better our race?

It's the people that still believe the earth is 5000 years old and dinosaur bones were planted by God to test our faith that scare the shit out of me.
 
Gweenz said:
You have a refreshing attitude for a Christian. I am agnostic through and through but I don't see why religion and science cannot coexist. Isn't the goal of both to better our race?

It's the people that still believe the earth is 5000 years old and dinosaur bones were planted by God to test our faith that scare the shit out of me.
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Thank you, religion is just so full of crud and liturgy when actually God made it very simple. Christianity and Science do coexist very much so, I personally feel that the more we discover in science the more the Bible makes sense. Dinosaur bones and the age of the earth, yes 2 very big questions. We can measure the dust on the moon and guess earths age, we can find fossil's and sediment on every elevation of earth swaying the flood idea. We can make a lot of "scientific" claims but at the end of the day God left a lot of things unanswered. Each generation that comes up makes new discoveries and solves old problems, they also unravel the layers of the Bible like an onion. Each generation has a deeper understanding and dig's deeper into the Kingdom of God, this proves both The writings of the Bible and modern science. <---- At least it doe's in my world, I understand how Christianity is hard to grasp but my personal study of the Bible and of God has lead me to follow His footsteps. It's a step of faith that one can not understand until they read God's word and make that decision. I will never bash anothers religious beliefs and feel that open debate is healthy for us all.

Just to clarify I do not believe the earth is millions of years old nor do I think it is only 5000 years young we have chinese vases that old, all I can say is that yeah it's pretty darn old. As for dinosaurs I don't think they were planted here to scare the crap out of us but I can not say when they existed, God lays out a timeline in the Bible and what He did here before He created man is a mystery. It could very well been a place of giant people and dinosaurs or it could have been Gods personal playground I have no idea so I guess I'll find out when I get to Heaven and can ask Him myself.
 
nvgrim said:
I guess hes just hanging out in heaven until any real world problems come around. Never mind the extreme hunger in some countries, war torn middle east, cancer, natural disasters, etc..
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Nope, He is coming again at the appointed time.
 
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DrLobotomy said:
The term is infinity. You go twice as far as you can see, only to find you are not even half way as far as you thought you could go. It never ends. If it did then what? A wall? What is on the other side of the wall?

Infinity.
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God of course :rolleyes:

That or what's unknown beyond the known unknown...
 
Well, I think what we can see now IS THE WALL. We are sort of stuck inside it. We are looking at other protons and electrons spinning inside some material. We could be lodged inside a giant grain of sand that makes up some humongous planet where the Gods play.
 
Wyodiver said:
If any chance of "life" has a 1 in a billion chance, it's not possible for life to have not existed, exists now, or will exist in the future.

"Life," as I'm thinking, can be bacteria, all the way to sentient creatures.
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It still possible just very unlikely. even if there was a 1/10 chance of life existent on a planet. it would still be possible we where the only one.. average rolls of randomness is not something that is for sure its just an average outcome.
not possible aka possible means impossible. not the same as highly unlikely.

If you are trying to use the "infinite" argument you really should look up on supertask and hypertask.


Anyway away form math and lets look into biology.

In chemistry our composite can be left or right oriented. the same composite of on thin will be different than the same composite if it reversed in its right/left orientation.
If this left/right orientation would follow normal average behavior we should have somehow a near equal amount of left and right oriented chemical compositions. but we don't.
For some weird reason we are either mainly left or right (i cant remember which on).

This couldt mean that life on earth did not originate on earth. if i did the spread would be more equal.
since its not it could mean that life originated form a small subset from an external source.
like a meteor strike carrying micro bacteria.

Soo maybe we ARE the aliens...
 
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Gweenz said:
You have a refreshing attitude for a Christian. I am agnostic through and through but I don't see why religion and science cannot coexist. Isn't the goal of both to better our race?

It's the people that still believe the earth is 5000 years old and dinosaur bones were planted by God to test our faith that scare the shit out of me.
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People who do grievous bodily harm or murder if you don't submit to their religion, scare me. I guess my priorities are off. I'll go straight to re-education camp right away.
 
nvgrim said:
Ahh, guess hes waiting for things to get bad here before intervening.
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If things go wrong he did a shitty job in the first place. I mean he did a shitty job with the garden of eden already. If he couldn't get a single garden with man and ribwoman right, how could we expect him or it to get right an universe with trillions of galaxies?
 
I believe gods are created by men, not the other way round.

I believe in the existence of a creator, but the said creator need not to be a benevolent omniscience, omnipotent entity/entities. It can equally be as likely to be a malevolent being using the created universe as a means to its own end, and we are just a cog in the machine, or it created the universe simply out of its own natural instinct.
 
Wyodiver said:
Mathematically, it's impossible that life is unique to Earth.
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Why? Nothing is impossible, per-se... Improbable, perhaps... But an infinitely large universe doesn't imply more than a finite amount of "stuff" inside it.
 
Religion is best when it enhances one's life and leaves others alone. However with some religious people attempting to have schools embrace creationist learning and abandon scientific studies because it conflicts with their personal beliefs; or people actively protesting equal rights to others due to their favourite book saying it's a no-no, I can't willingly join that crowd.
 
I believe that every man, woman, etc should be allowed to go to church.
 
I hope this is a joke. I've seen family, and friends succumb to bullshit vacuum cleaner scams, religion, etc.


Whose the guy who will send you a "free" bottle of water?


Joel Olstiein has never been touched by god.
 
Wyodiver said:
I believe that every man, woman, etc should be allowed to go to church.
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Personally, I believe everyone should be allowed go to their place of worship and practice their religion in a way that helps others and enhances their life. Anybody who is against that is imposing their beliefs on others in a way that attempts to remove their rights: which is not a good thing.
 
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