why do people talk about the universe, we can only EVER explore/ investigate our own galaxy?

Question

It would take thousands ansd thousands of years to send a probe to another galaxy, plus the milkyway (our galaxy) is MASSIVE. Sorry it just gets on my ****. Boy we haven't even explored our own solar system yet.

Remeber that the galaxies in the 'universe' are expanding further apart so the distance to another galaxy only increases over time. Perhaps we should abandon the universe phrase altogether, especially as the idea of what the universe really is has come into question. (eg with ideas of a multi-verse)

All we have is our own Galaxy, accept this, it takes light years to even get to the nearest star (within our galaxy) so the idea of universe is something that we can never really understand as we can never fully investigate it.

Answer 1

I agree it will take us eons to get bored with this galactic neighborhood. However, studies of deep space have much to offer physics since events can be observed at energy levels you can't reach in laboratories. Already we've learned from such studies that most of our universe is composed of so-called dark matter and dark energy, and we currently have little clue what either one is.

Answer 2

There is something called curiosity. Have you explored every nooks and cranny of your town? Examined every corner, checked every street? Probably not. Yet, should that prevent you from having gone abroad on a journey?
Right now, 12 men ever landed on the moon, and a few dozen people ever went in orbit. Probes have quickly explored the planets of our own system, but there are people who have a passion for stars, huge black hole, to see how galaxies looked like right after the big bang, and they are interested in that. Their sights are on the long range. So, what is it to you? They do not impose their choice on you, do they?
For the record, if one except the dwarf galaxies that orbit our own, the closest spiral galaxy comparable in size to ours is 2.2 million light years away; so your estimate of thousands and thousands of years to send a probe is even dwarfed by the real value.
But note that this is assuming that there is no way to travel faster than the sped of light, which may or may not be impossible, we just don't know.
But one thing that remains, is that if you consider how big the universe is, you can wonder if there are other "people" somewhat like us, somewhere else. That is both humbling and inspiring.
And that drives some people.
I say: let them pursue their dream.

Answer 3

If you can come up with a good enough spaceship you could actually travel to other galaxies. When you got close enough to the speed of light, time would slow down enough that the trip wouldn't take that long for you. At 1 gravity acceleration, you'd get to Andromeda in about 25 years. (Of course, a grain of sand hitting you at that speed would have the impact of a hydrogen bomb) If you started slowing down halfway there so you could stop and look around, and came home again it would take about 200 years to finish the journey. Of course, the Earth will be 4 million years older since time didn't slow down there.
If you left a nickel in a 4% savings account, you'd have several quadrillion dollars. Probably enough to buy Tic-Tac with inflation figured in.

Answer 4

Calculations the suns closet component is ninety 3 million miles away. on the fee of sound it is approximately 700mph it takes around 5335 days... so situation a million To deliver a image or shop communication might take years. If those issues return and forth at that speed. we haven't any in a position mechanism that would desire to try this way of component. on the fee of sunshine going from one component of our galaxy to the different takes i think of one hundred sixty thousand years. So existence span would not be long adequate. despite if we stumbled on a planet that would desire to maintain existence ( which their are planets that would) we'd be in worry daily of having hit via an asteroid or gamma ray burst and so on. additionally the earth sits in a suited spot. If it became any closer to the solar we'd burn. If any farther we'd freeze. additionally the solar has approximately 4.5 billion years left earlier it explodes. So how long do you think of earlier we get the technologies to return and forth that a ways

Answer 5

When information is sent out from an object, it is either intercepted or keeps travelling indefinatly. Because of this, things come to us so we ought not go to them to know something about them. Though we are limited by our airmchair observations of the universe, we can still derive much from the information we collect. A little information goes a long way!

Answer 6

Because it is there and being an orderly, classifying species it needs to be labelled. For that matter since we can't even explore our galaxy following your argument I guess we shouldn't name it either? Similarly because you won't ever see the whole world does that mean we don't need to name it. Or even more locally, you may not see every street in the town/city you live in, but they still exist and have names.

Answer 7

Not in our life time because even our own galaxy billions of lights years wide so even if you could manage to travel at the sped of light it would take you billions of years just to reach the other side!

Answer 8

A few people think the way you do, but most of us are interested in what's out there, just out of the love of knowledge. The only thing that protects me from loneliness and despair is my telescope.

Okay, and my Doggie.

But it's just a basic human thing. If you don't want to know about what's out there, you can take up billiards, or gardening.

Answer 9

Well, perhaps you're young and things bother you more than they should. Perhaps we will master FTL travel within 200 years and then we will be able to go anywhere in the universe within a lifetime? It still helps us to understand our surroundings when we investigate what is very very far away.

Answer 10

If you think about, in the time frame of all time, the homo sapiens have been here less than a second.So it's amazing that we've even explored space YET.And besides, it takes like 2 years to create and unmanned spacecraft.