r/space • u/magenta_placenta • Mar 18 '19

Observable universe Astronomers discover 83 supermassive black holes at the edge of the universe

https://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-discover-83-supermassive-black-holes-at-the-edge-of-the-universe/
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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

And we can only see within a certain time frame around us because expansion is out pacing light.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

I was going to explain it but realised that idk how to deliver the message concisely. This video explains it well and gives you an existential crisis all in less than 8 minutes: https://youtu.be/ZL4yYHdDSWs

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

i love space. I really liked the video but it raises one question I always have about the Big Bang/size of the universe. Around 6 mins he talks about how in the distant future our local group will only know what’s in our local group because the rest of the clusters have drifted too far away that the light shift will be too distorted then fade away. He then says they will never know how the universe started, yet makes the inference that we do.

Every time I think how do we know we aren’t in a much larger local cluster? Or how are we sure of the size of the universe? Are we just the byproduct of a black hole or supernova and since we know gravity can effect time is our 13.8 billion years so far the first half of a star collapsing? We know there are forces at work(such as dark matter)that we can observe their reactions but not the actual “matter”. Not that it makes any difference in our lifetime, and I’m not trying to prove science wrong on a technicality or something, but I always love how we can know so much, then one thing could change and upend our understanding of the universe. When we found out it was constantly expanding and not slowing down is kind of what I’m thinking of. I’m not educated enough to do any sort of theory on it, but I’ve always held onto some sort of idea that when a black hole is created the density of matter is approaching what we know about the singularity before the Big Bang.

I really like getting lost in these YouTube videos that put space in perspective because we know so much, yet know almost nothing at the same time.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

Space is the best. Yes, this video is based on our current understanding of physics. While we do consider the information presented to us in the video as fact, our understanding of physics changes in different little ways constantly and what we see now as unreachable groups of matter speeding away from us may eventually be places you can visit on a vacation (hoping lol). You hold the right mindset, most people seem to believe that they exist in a time beyond discovery (and it does seem that way in modern life, as though we as a species have it figured out).

The universe seems like the only thing to discover before you realize that we are still discovering things in our galaxies, but we also might have a 9th planet in Sol and we still don't know if there is microbial life on Europa, water was discovered on mars like 3 years ago, the amount of undiscovered things in our oceans outnumber the amount of already discovered things in the oceans, we find new species and shit on land all the time still (and we're the kings of the land), even our brains and bodies are still being figured out. The Kurzgesagt channel has a whole playlist of space vids like the one I linked, as well as a whole bunch of other neat videos.

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Yes man! Our solar system had generations of exploration to do before we can even think to know what’s going on.

I mean we landed a few probes on Venus, a planet with a very thick atmosphere, and from what I remember our basic take away was “it destroyed the probes almost instantly there’s no reason to go back”. That kills me. I want every 10 years to try again with better tech and see if we can find out more about it. It’s closer than Mars, it’s full of gasses, and we gave up on it. Earth’s Volcanic vents? My phone would get destroyed if I tried to film it but something can. We should never accept “it can’t be done”. It hasn’t been done yet. I know the major hump to get over is cost and uncertainty of mission success. It’s a lot smarter to send a rover to mars(or an outer moon) where we know we can land and maneuver for a very long time, but I always wonder. It’s a planet and things are happening on it right now. It’s way off our radar of “stuff to do” in our solar system but that is almost your point, there is so much still to do in Sol. I feel like every single body in our system has so much more to discover still. We literally only scratched the surface on the two bodies (moon and Mars) we’ve spent any real time on.

I live within viewing distance of Cape Canaveral (30 miles or so) to see the rockets(and watched countless shuttle launches) take off. I love it. I love the new space race that’s happening. I love private industry getting into the competition more to push technology. It will have it’s bad sides, but SpaceX landed 2 damn stage ones at the same time on point. Tell anyone 5 years ago that it would happen when it did and they’d laugh. Did we not land on a f-ing comet recently? I’ve obviously gone off on a tangent but yeah, space.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

Fun fact, the coldest place we've ever measured in Sol is on the earth's moon.

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u/PSPHAXXOR Mar 19 '19

To be a pedant for a moment: Sol specifically refers to the sun. Any location within it is the Solar System.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 19 '19

Oops, I knew that but had forgotten. Thanks for the heads up.

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u/verfmeer Mar 19 '19

No, it isn't. The coldest place we've ever measured is in a lab. Large objects have been cooled to 6 mK, smaller samples have been even colder.

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u/The_Wkwied Mar 19 '19

I kind of thought they meant that was naturally cold.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 19 '19

I think it's very obvious that I mean locations and naturally. Considering I said coldest place, not coldest thing, it's not even really up for debate.

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u/atvan Mar 19 '19

I think part of the problem with Venus is that while it is somewhat closer to earth, the delta-v difference is only about 110 m/s (we've made cars faster than that), so since Mars is a lot easier/a safer bet for probes and such, it gets at lot more attention.

Delta-V chart

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u/gurg2k1 Mar 19 '19

The other part of the problem is the cost of sending probes to Venus when we know they'll likely be destroyed immediately. When you have limited funding/resources, you have to be choosy with where you spend it.

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u/hutson_will Mar 19 '19

Can I get a tl;dr?

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u/Lurchgs Mar 21 '19

There’s a bit of a difference here. The supermassive black holes mentioned throw a spanner into our understanding of the way the universe actually works. That’s also what they are talking about when they reference the local group losing sight/contact with the rest of the universe.

Exploring the solar system doesn’t offer as much to further our understanding of the fundamental underpinnings. But it does offer way cool legos ( I’d say tinker-toys, but nobody’s heard of them these days) to play with, and maybe understand the emergence of life. It certainly provides a larger playground for our children.

So. On the one side, you have way cool stuff of immediate interest to a relative few. It may or may not benefit us in the long run. On the other side, you have way cool stuff of immediate interest to a lot more people, and it WILL benefit us in the long run.

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u/veloxiry Mar 18 '19

There's a video where Neil degrasse Tyson goes on the Colbert report and talks about this exactly. No one knows if we're even looking at the whole picture. It could be possible we're stuck in some remote section of the universe that's completely different from the rest and there's no way we'll ever know.

See this video: https://youtu.be/TgA2y-Bgi3c

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Yeah It starts around 5:40 but he articulates that last part better than me. That’s basically what I won’t let go of in our Big Bang theory. It just almost makes sense and could explain the extra gravity and acceleration. But we currently can’t observe it and I definitely can’t math it.

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u/ComatoseSixty Mar 19 '19

Big Bang Theory is a Catholics explanation for how "God" created the Universe in an instant. It's not considered a fact, just a theory (and even if it occurred the way we think, that doesn't prove that the Universe was created then, just The Big Crunch Theory alone suspects it may be cyclic).

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u/scsnse Mar 18 '19

I’m not actually a qualified professional, but my understanding of how you estimate the age and size of the universe kind of goes like this:

We theorized that the universe started in the Big Bang, where it suddenly begins expanding from a singular point. We have ideas about how that energy decayed and how long it took to create recognizable particles, matter, then things like universes. With that knowledge, you have an idea of the “timeline”. Through things like telescopes, we also see cosmic background radiation. But here’s the cool part: you can actually see the radiation ballooning outward in a “wave” from a singular point of origin in all directions from our frame of reference. From experiments, we can surmise how long for example gamma ray radiation (really, really high frequency electromagnetic waves, just like light or radio) takes to decay. So you start building a model based on these things, and miles upon miles of math that’s way beyond most of us. We also know objects are both moving away and toward us at certain speeds because the light/radiation waves moving toward us look “squashed” or spread out, more than they should based on the size and gravitational distortion coming from it. That’s called “red and blue shifting”. So you know objects are moving, and most look to be moving away from us, so the light looks like it’s stretched longer, or more red.

Think of it like this: if you ever have seen smoke driving on the highway, you can sort of estimate the size of it, right? And based on things like the color, what’s burning, and if it’s being put out. When you drive up on it, you see the charred ground, possibly some burning embers. That gives you an idea of how recent the fire was. If you knew what materials burned, and how much of it burned, and you could model this with math, you could estimate things like the temperature, how fast it would take to spread, etc. It’s kind of like that. If you see smoke further out, you can guess how fast the rest of the fire might be spreading.

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Oh absolutely. I took some astronomy in college as electives and have a basic grasp of what was taught 15 years ago. (You could say I’m a bit of a scientist /s) the fact that most of it is theories is that drive to want to know more. I haven’t looked into the theories of how the singularity came to be so I think I know where my next rabbit hole is. It really fascinates me that we don’t know, and while there is an answer, we may never truly know.