relative flatness of space?

Question

saturns rings, our solar system even the milkyway galaxy are all relativly on flat. they seem like on a flat plane. i would expect stuff in space to exist in an area more widly disbursed such as like a globe. take the big bang as an example, an explosion in space would sent stuff out in all directions not just along a flat plane. so why are there so many flat shaped groupings in the universe?

Answer 1

This is more easily understood when you actually see it happen in a computer simulation. Let's say that we have a cloud of small particles in empty space, and they are perfectly still, except that they all gravitationally attract. They will come together as a single ball at the center of mass of the cloud, no disc, no spinning, no orbits. However, in reality, a cloud of small particles in empty space is likely to have a random distribution of position AND momentum, and it's this momentum that's responsible for the more interesting features to form. A random cloud of particles with random momentum is statistically like to have a NET angular momentum, so that as the particles gravitationally implode, the entire system starts to spin more obviously. We see this all the time in real life. For example, a skater pulls her arms in, and spins faster. It's this angular momentum that prevents the cloud from completely collapsing into a ball. Yet, because even a random angular momentum does have an axis, meaning that there's going to be a preferred direction of spin, and as gravity continues to collapse the system, particles will "fall" towards a increasingly flattening spinning disk. Then real complicated physics takes over, in that in the spinning disk, while almost always there's a single massive core (other times, it's a binary), in the rest of the spinning disk, "planets" and "subplanets (moons)" can form, while other bands fail to form any planets, and "band gaps" can appear, and sometimes even tiny bands will will braid! It's fascinating stuff, and we see examples of this in the close-up shots of the rings of Saturn and other planets that have rings. Yes, Saturn is not the only planet in our solar system that have rings, it's just harder to see the other ones.

Answer 2

It might have to do with the way gravity works relative to the actual shape of the universe (which is not fully understood), pulling objects toward and around a relatively flat axis. A governing spin force could account for the flatness when it comes to matter distribution. Matter appears to be about 95% consistant with flat, meaning that not all of the matter in the universe exists near a flat plane...just most of it. Kind of like a line of best fit I guess.

That doesn't mean the universe itself is flat, though. It is best just to imagine the matter as a flat plane through something else that would represent the actual shape of the universe...which is unknown at this time.

Answer 3

Well, all glaxies are flat because the high rate of which they spin. The centriphical force flattens them out. As for other terrestials, they vary in position quite a bit, and seeing as how we dont know where the universe ends, space could be sphere.

Answer 4

Any "inflation concept" is a variation of the massive Bang concept. It would not replace quite some something after the 1st nanosecond, whether there are some small remnant "signatures" in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave history. The "Early Inflation" befell in the 1st femtosecond of the massive Bang, and alter right into a era of exponential growth. That early, speedy growth section solves various matters with the massive Bang concept, specifically the "horizon difficulty".

Answer 5

I'm not sure but, it probably has something to do with spinning and with gravity.