Actual size of the universe.

@Sinter Klaas

And to think, we believe that we were the ONLY intelligent life in the universe,

Well, we may be clever, but would an 'intelligent' species spend so much time and money in finding more ways of slaughtering its own kind in ever larger numbers, or fouling its own nest, so to speak, or worshiping shiny yellow metal, etc??

As for the Universe being big, well I'll agree there, but the size that they are claiming can not be proven, as the cosmic distance ladder is not verifiable, they are just the best guesses of people who have a vested interest in continuing the Standard Model. Those super huge stars could be much smaller and much closer than we are told. Keep an open mind.

Originally posted by bsalert
And earth does not even equate to a grain of salt in this universe and we are the only planet that has life

god you skeptics are beyond a joke!

Practically no skeptic on ATS (none that I know of) says Earth is the only planet with intelligent life. Most educated people and virtually ALL scientists believe that intelligent life most likely exists elsewhere in the universe, basically due to the sheer size of the universe (although nobody can be truly 100% sure until that life is encountered somehow).

The skepticism usually surrounds the idea of whether or not ET life is visiting the Earth , NOT whether or not ET life exists.


...so I'm not sure to whom exactly you were directing your "lols" and your rage in your post.

reply to post by GaryN


Don't you worry. My mind is open.

inner salar distances are pretty verifiable and those are mind blowing on there own imo

imagine astral traveling out there and getting lost ... or running into one of those giant stars...

-B.M

Great post! had to comment so I could have it saved. Don't know another way.

Amazing way to look at it all. Amazing to see how much we don't understand, amazing to think what's much bigger beyond what we can't see.

bloody hell, i knew we were just a tiny spec in the universe but i didnt realize just how tiny

For all we know....our Big Bang could have been just one of many in the cosmos.

We can only see so far...and the further we can see, the more keep finding... Worse yet, what we find is that we are only seeing the past...often millions of years into the past...

If we follow the models of the Universe, we see solar systems, within galaxies, within galactic clusters....which are themselves swirling along with other, more distant clusters...

Maybe these galactic clusters are even rotating as small parts of an even bigger system, along with other such systems, etc.?

It's simply mind-boggling as it is..but for all we know, we may be really premature in assuming that we've even seen a small part of the Universe, let alone have an idea of its actual dimensions.

Maybe far, far away, beyond our wildest ideas of the end of the Universe, other Big Bangs happened...where galaxies are flying away from each other, colliding, etc.

We simply don't know.

I am absolutely facinated by everything that we know (and don't know) about our universe. The sheer size of the stars in relation to our tiny planet boggles the mind!

Thanks for posting this!

(Crud. Had a big thing typed out, then screwed up and erased it before posting. This version will be more sloppily written. Anyway...)

I think the subject line is a bit misleading. You didn't really show the "Actual Size Of The Universe" so much as "How much matter might the Universe contain?" And if you approach the subject literally, it's unanswerable. The Universe doesn't have a fixed size.

Also, no offense to the OP (I respect the amount of work you put into it), but Monty Python did this before, and did it with rhyme!

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Star and flag for this absolutely a master piece I wish I had more to say about it but still awe struck by the pictures.

Ok; say your assumptions are accurate; what's on the other side and on the other side of that and so-on?

reply to post by MichelJCardin


What assumptions ? Are you satisfied with an I don't know ?

reply to post by cuthbert


Lol

The title doesn't claim anything.

I chose that title because most people do not even understand the actual size of the parts we actually do know.

I've tried to show that even space we do know for a fact, is larger then what most people think it is.

Truly an awesome post...thank you for taking the time to put this together to share with us. It was very informative, and really put into perspective just how small our world truly is compared to the entire universe..

Originally posted by B.Morrison
imagine astral traveling out there and getting lost

... or running into one of those giant stars...

-B.M

I was just thinking that very thing...Imagine travelling out as far as 100 million light years, then wanting to come back home, but you only know the general area of our position in the Milky way galaxy..wow

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


Odd. I have exactly the opposite reaction to posts like these. In contemplating the scale of the universe, I cast my *mind* out into and around it, until my mind *holds* it all within my own conception of *self*, creating a resonance with a force that can only be described as *eternal* (god?). I am always left with the feeling that I am far larger then my physical bodies position on this tiny, insignificant and *wonderful* planet would seem to indicate at first glance.

Originally posted by sith9157

Originally posted by B.Morrison
imagine astral traveling out there and getting lost

... or running into one of those giant stars...

-B.M

I was just thinking that very thing...Imagine travelling out as far as 100 million light years, then wanting to come back home, but you only know the general area of our position in the Milky way galaxy..wow

exactly! I vaguely remember a dream I had once after holding a strong desire to scope out the universe & fly around out there & in the dream I ended up dwarfed by a massive hot glowing orange thing which I guessed was the sun & I got scared I'd burn & tried to get away but I sucked at flying and it just seemed the surface was everywhere & I couldn't get away from it... kind of sucked coz it was an epic fail but it did make me realize I needed to get educated if I wanted to dream travel the universe & that I had to get better at controlling my own actions within the dreams...

Peace,
-Bob

Originally posted by sith9157

Originally posted by B.Morrison
imagine astral traveling out there and getting lost

... or running into one of those giant stars...

-B.M

I was just thinking that very thing...Imagine travelling out as far as 100 million light years, then wanting to come back home, but you only know the general area of our position in the Milky way galaxy..wow

I agree...

But forget just not finding the way back to our Sun -- it may be difficult to even find the Milky Way galaxy from 100 Million LY out. There are 2500 large galaxies within 100 million LY of us, and 50,000 small (dwarf) galaxies.

And 100 Million LY is actually a relatively short distance away when talking in terms of the entire Universe. Just think of all of the galaxies that are a modest half-billion LY from Earth.

Here is a website showing the vast distances of the Universe, and the structures at those distances. It starts in our relative area, 12.5 LY from the Sun, then you can zoom out from there. There is a page that shows just what you are asking -- the view from 100 Million LY away:

Interactive Atlas of the Universe

Originally posted by KatieVA
Does anyone else feel like they want to puke their intestines out when they see the size of those massive stars?

It's the type of thing I would have nightmares about. Truely terrifying!

I used to have a real fear of the universe but somehow I changed that. But looking at these types of things sometimes still does make me feel that way.

reply to post by jokerzwild


I don't know how detailed the worlds telescopes can image a pic... But a very big star not to far away, might get you something.

Honestly...

I think you are right and they are usually signed of as artist impression anyway. Space pics I mean,.