Isn't spacetime supposed to be expanding uniformly all over the place? How come we don't seem to experience or feel it here on Earth and in the vicinity of the Solar System?
2007-10-15 01:47:07 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
the universe lad, not everything. There has been some investigation into this and if there is a strong enough force existing then things are not pulled apart: the stuff you see is not all getting bigger, the moon is not further away.
But in between the spaces between areas of stronger forces are being pulled away, so the galaxies become like islands in a bigger sea..
2007-10-15 01:55:50 · answer #1 · answered by Teal R 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋
"Isn't spacetime supposed to be expanding uniformly all over the place?"
The answer is NO. Spacetime is expanding but not 'uniformly'. The space between galactic groups is expanding the most, with the expansion being less within galactic groups and even less within a single galaxy and is almost negligible within our solar system. This is due to the fact that the more matter you have in a location the greater the influence of gravity and that offsets the expansion.
2007-10-15 02:32:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The universe is expanding by creating new space. The latest cosmology states that objects are not flying apart from each other like billiard balls on a table. Rather, the objects (and by objects, we're talking on the scale of galaxies and superclusters here) are stationary relative to their local space-time fabric, and new spaces is being created between them due to the deterioration of the initial energy that created the universe. Think of this as objects floating on a puddle that is expanding because more fluid is bubbling up from below (don't mind where the fluid is coming from). So, any given locality won't experience much effect from the expansion, but the distances to other galaxies will increase, as observed by the red shift of stars in those galaxies.
2007-10-15 04:08:46 · answer #3 · answered by dansinger61 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The rate of expansion is really very small, and it is only noticeable very large distances, like hundreds of millions or billions of light years.
The Hubble constant, which defines the expansion, is estimated to be around 75 km/s per Mpc. Thats Mpc (megaparsec) as in 3.26 million light years. At that distance, space is receding from us at a speed of 75 km/s. But at a distance of a light year, the expansion amounts to only 23mm/sec, or 83 meters/hour. Over the Earth-Sun distance, it's just over a mm per hour. Which is to say, the effects of expansion are very weak over cosmologically short distances. In reality, the force of gravity is so much greater that the expansion is totally negligible. Gravity dominates up to the scale of galaxy clusters.
2007-10-15 07:03:30 · answer #4 · answered by injanier 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The galaxies and stars are to far away for an observer to be able to detect their moving apart by simple perception. The only measurable proof of univrsal expansion has come from the analysis of the doppler shifts of distant galaxies, that is the wavelengths of their radiation is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, only observable by a spectrometer.
2007-10-15 02:24:05 · answer #5 · answered by Mandél M 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No, the Solar System is not expanding. In fact, our local supercluster of galaxies is not expanding. It's only on scales larger than clusters of galaxies that space is expanding.
The "uniformity" is not really uniform on small scales (like mere galaxies). It's "uniform" in the sense that on very large scales, billions of lightyears, it's uniform. That's a remarkable thing---material that is on opposite sides of the universe is expanding at the same rate.
2007-10-15 01:52:08 · answer #6 · answered by cosmo 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
the enlargement of the universe is totally a phenomenon of the huge bang. If it keeps increasing we shop shifting far off from different galaxies and different structures. We even flow further far off from our sunlight and that it undesirable information for existence on our planet.
2016-12-18 08:07:43 · answer #7 · answered by cruickshank 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In order to observe the expansion you would have to be outside of our universe and thus not subject to it yourself.
Just observe MISHMOLE (account suspended) vote me if you want?
No-one is allowed to thumb down My friend Mr Crabtree it states this in the The Holy Bubble; Thou should not smitey the Crabtree Farmers that are.
2007-10-16 00:47:38 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
In order to observe the expansion you would have to be outside of our universe and thus not subject to it yourself.
2007-10-15 13:50:49 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
it expands so slowly that we dont see it very clearly or have much detail. Similar to how the earth revolves around the sun
2007-10-15 01:52:10 · answer #10 · answered by rrai 3 · 0⤊ 4⤋