boo

iv heard the theory that the binary system of the moon and earth is a result of an ancient collision with some rogue planet or some large object, which seems to have split the moon from the earth and set us in this rotating motion but that would mean the object itself was somehow absorbed into earth and became part of it so, im just wondering, would it not make more sense that the moon itself might actually be that object? or the remains of it?

this is fascinating information, i wasnt aware of it, thankyou so, have the conditions also changed on earth since the dinosaur era , like is earth colder or something else that would make life impossible for such reptiles to live today?

i probably phrased my question badly. I was not suggesting that the large animals were the cause of the extinction. but rather, i was suggesting that it is a natural for animals to continue to grow larger and larger unless inhibited by mass extinction events , whatever the cause

its such a pity that andromeda doesnt actually look like this to the naked eye

it seems that over the course of history, earths lifeforms tend to get very large before a mass extinction event happens, which reduces life back to small life forms again so, would it be reasonable to believe that earth may be headed, over the course of millions of years, back to a dinosaurlike environment again at some point in the future with large animals of some description roaming the earth, weather they be reptiles, or mammals? and the human era is possibly just one of the early phases in that process. or is there some physical reason why earth can no longer support such a thing, such as weaker atmosphere, or colder planet temperature or something to do with how the eco system has been altered by us humans which makes it impossible?

i heard about the phenomenon of rogue black holes which can get ejected when two galaxies collide in certain circumstances these black holes might carry no stars or planets with them and would therefore be invisible, i guess which gave me a frightening thought if one were hurtling through the abyss directly towards us, possibly about to enter our galaxy near where earth is located would we know in advance?

in terms of looking out of the milky way to the other galaxies in the outer universe how much of it can we see from our location in the milky way? for exmaple, imagining the milky way disc was a clock if we are at 6 o clock now ,in the milky way, that if we were at 7 o clock, or 3 o clock we would see a whole different selection of galaxies? or can we already see the full 360 degrees of the observable universe from where we are using the instruments we have? unless you guessed, im no scientist, so go easy please LOL

thats fascinating could it be possible that the faster rate at which things are expanding, is a natural result of the fact that the universe is simply bigger now than it was before? or is it moving even faster still?

those are USB 1 connections, you might want something faster than that

wow iv learned a lot in those two answers. I didnt realise that dark matter and dark energy were two different things incidentally, how do we know that the expansion is increasing? and how is it increasing exactly? I always thought it was increasing at a steady rate, but naturally that would mean the farther something is away, the faster it would move away simply because the space in between is expanding. is that it? or am i to believe that things are expanding faster than they used to? as in, lets say you had two galaxies a certain distance from one another. would they move away from eachother at a faster rate now than they would have a billion years ago?

meaning that it was invented to explain the expanding universe, rather than because we detected it or "saw" it or otherwise proved it to be there. thats what i meant, with the question. reviving an old thread here, but thought i would clarify what i meant there.

thanks for your response ok, very layman question here, (and i do apologise if these questions appear nonsensical to those of you who study the subject), but it would clear a lot up for me. if you bumped into dark matter would you feel it? or would you pass through it without feeling anything? and one more, if there was dark matter in front of regular matter, would it obscure the light coming from it? or would we see right through the dark matter as tough it was invisible?

is dark matter nothing more than a wildcard thrown in to a mathematical equation to make the equation work? what evidence do we have for it other than that? will we ever be able to see it? what do you ( or scientists) think it is exacly?

really? but dont humans still need to compete against eachother for natural selection? it may be a slow process, but over time would have some effects. it must have been a factor in our evolution up to this point aswell im sure

just wondering, is it possible to predict evolution of a particular species? if we know the evolutionary history of that species and are aware of the factors that contributed to it. can scientists make accurate assumptions about the future of a species? for example, is it possible to predict the next stages in human evolution?