And you thought the Sun was big???

[KillerHERTZ]

I want to know where that room with the grey floor/walls is, where those pictures of the planets were taken

 

[AANDYY]

I managed to get out to our observatory the other night and it was a mind blowing experience.

Within minutes I saw a number of shooting stars, the International Space Station and the Moon was so close i was looking at craters within craters within craters, plus Saturn was absolutely pin sharp. What a brilliant 30 minutes of my time and it was free entertainment

You can see the ISS with the naked eye, well it actually looks like a shooting star going across the sky, each time I see it, it fascinates me (am I sad?)

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdat...=United_Kingdom&region=England&city=Blackpool

Type in ya postcode, blar di blar......

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Another version of it - totally messes with your head:

Massive image sorry 56k people:

 

[miro]

ah but what is it expanding into?

The universe is not actually expanding at all. The density of time is decreasing.

Now to make things even more vague. The photos of the universe showing something billions of years old is actually a photo of us then.

Time itself is not constant in the universe. It varies according to the amount of gravity and density of matter. The only constant is how fast something can move through time. Thus if time is dense, to an outsider not in that space, objects would APPEAR to move slowly. Within that space, all the same no matter where you go (much like a Veyron stuck in traffic in SW1, to the driver it is an incredibly fast car and to the guy going past on a pushbike it is not very fast at all).

Hence the reason why we can still see images of denser parts of space. The light travelled at a relatively slower pace to leave those places before it arrived here.

So if it were a piece of string and you were measuring the length of a soccer field. This week it is 100 metres long and next week it would be some other distance longer. But the ends would be no further apart but the grass on the field less dense giving the impression that the field is larger. Perhaps now with a spherical mound shape and not flat to make up for the greater distance. The measuring tape as light, can bend to accomodate the change of shape. Flat surfaces as we know them have no actual relationship to objects in very ancient areas. The distance inbetween has in fact warped quite a bit since year dot .

To make matters more exciting the changes of density in space mean that the physical distances are not the same thing as light years. The two concepts are related by density and not driveable distance. Which is why it seems like forever when you stuck in dense traffic and no time at all when you are on an empty freeway.

Not a perfect example but in the right ballpark.

 

[whitenemesis]

Miro, wow!!

I need a lie down after only reading that....

 

[miro]

Miro, wow!!

I need a lie down after only reading that....

Certainly explains what happens to a male belly over time and why the male can not actually perceive the change.

 

[Simon]

I think you'll like this one:

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party on Vimeo