The Holy Mol

I think it's also important to note that not only is the universe expanding but the expansion is accelerating. If I'm incorrect please correct me!

I think that space is infinite. Space is just the void that our planet and every detectable and as of yet undetectable 'thing' resides in. It's like an ant climbing around on a leaf that's drifting in the current with a large tree in an infinite ocean. The ant is the human species, the leaf is earth, the tree is the universe and the ocean is space. I think that the matter inside of space is finite--to an extent. There may be an infitine number of other trees floating around out there. I think that just being able to somehow detect the edge of our own universe will be a big accomplishment. So far the trend is that the further back we look the newer everything is. Soon there's only going to be dust, which is hard to detect without an energy source being emitted from behind it. If not for the space dust and innumerable other objects and debris and phenomenon, our sky would already shine like daytime. I read this somewhere, a search on star formation or something should give some info.

I was just about to say the same thing Babbler! I found out that the crucial component is mass. So what you really need to make artificial gravity on a space craft is a little bit of black hole at its center...you'd have a gravity producer taking up very little area! I guess it would be a problem moving the craft at that point

Is gravity produced by the rotation of the Earth, the mass of the Earth or a combination of both? I was wondering about making gravity on a space station. I've seen the hamster wheel type of station that makes everything stick to the walls...but what about putting a spinning ball in the center of a space ship. If the spin causes gravity then you could have a small('ish) mass and spin it very quickly to pull everything towards it. If the mass makes the gravity then the gravity producer might need to be so big that it would not be feasible....if it is a combination of the two then it could possibly work...right?

Ophiolite, I didn't think that there were any fixed points....that's why I used the idea of dropping a theoretical object (that was not affected by any force...could a neutrino accomplish this?) and measuring the speed it appeared to move away. Can space be compared to an empty room? I mean does it exist no matter what, it's just the universe inside of space that changes? So in the empty room a balloon would be the known universe...is that accurate? Martin, that is pretty fast! The information provided at that link is above my head, but I can makes sense of some if it. Thanks for the help to get me to understand Ophiolite and Martin.

That was exactly the type of information I was looking for...it's just too bad that an exact speed from a fixed point could not be figured out. It would be interesting to know how fast we're moving...as an argument to say that even though we can move 1,000's of mph, that's actually pretty slow. Is Earth (in it's spot in our galaxy) in a rotation moving towards Andromeda? So are we moving at the combined speed of the rotation plus the direction of the galaxy? That way I could say that either we're moving at a max of 777,600 mph or we could be moving a snail's pace of 172,800 mph.

Does anyone know the velocity the Earth is travelling in relation to a fixed point in space? In other words....if an object could be released that was absolutely fixed in place, at what rate would I move away from it?

However it is built, I think that it should be better than Hubble!

Ophiolite, that helped a little bit but I did not find it to support the theory of no center to the universe. Because I do not have the mathematical skills to comprehend how there could not be a center my common sense will tell me it does exist*. Why are galaxies accelerating from each other? Not just maintaining a constant velocity moving away from each other but the velocity is increasing. The Hubble Constant seems a little misleading since I didn't read anything that said there was a constant and that the value has to be reevaluated periodically. *Unless the universe is infinite...which (to me) would discredit the big bag theory...because if an infinite sized universe exploded from an infinitely dense object then the object would be of infinite size...right? Or is the infinite applied to space while the matter in space is finite? Ho hum, all out of drinks today

I don't understand how it cannot have an edge nor center. It could surely have a sort of average center even it the universe was not completely round.

Yes, I have heard that if you have a fast camera you can snap pictures of it right before you fall off! Hmm, how about seeing the outer diameter instead of the edge? If the universe started from a single point and grew (in whatever way, bing bang, miracle grow or whatever) there must be a finite distance from that point. How do you detect that outer diameter without actually travelling there (assuming that we have not already crossed boundries with another universe or universes (universi? Universities?! ))? Is the universe 2d or 3d round? Discuss. <Sips hot chocolate>

Providing there is an edge and that the universe is expanding, I wonder if it can be detected. We are seeing objects pretty far out there. We are seeing so far back that we're seeing more towards what the beginning looked like...new stars and such. Well, what happens when you're looking so far that the stars haven't formed yet? No energy is being made! How do you detect just dust and gas on the far side of stars? Energy from stars isn't passing through the dust on the way to us thereby transfering energy to the dust and making it visible. Therefore I conclude that we will never see the edge of the universe, not in a million years or it comes crashing back in on us. Discuss. <Sips hot tea>