Hubble captures stunning gravitational interaction among a trio of galaxies

I see your Schwartz is as big as mine!

Aug 8, 2021permalink

John Koch

Are they a "clashing triplet of galaxies"? Perhaps they are very far apart, but simply appear to overlap, when viewed from the Hubble, whose lenses foreshorten the appearance of the actual separation. Of course, gravitational interaction could still be present, over the course of billions of years, even at great distances, even if the components disperse more than they ever collide. However, even galaxies that do not "appear" to be close to each other show irregularities in their whorls and stellar clouds. None are graphically perfect spirals. The gravitational factors are both intra- and trans-galactic. Spiraled candies and cookies are more orderly.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

"Dark matter, according to mathematical models, makes up three-quarters of all the matter in the universe. But it's never been seen or fully explained. ... Now, an international team of scientists says it has found new evidence that perhaps dark matter doesn't really exist after all.Jan 6, 2021"

Maybe 'dark matter' doesn't exist after all, new ... - NBC Newshttps://www.nbcnews.com › science › space › maybe-dark..

Aug 7, 2021permalink

quiquae

If the triplet of galaxies are distant enough not to interact with each other, they would exhibit different levels of redshift. I presume the astronomers have done enough spectral analyses to conclude that these galaxies are in roughly the same area before publishing such a result.

Aug 8, 2021permalink

The structures will tell if the galaxies interact or not. This is not wild guess by the astronomers.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

overzeetop

A quick reminder to those unfamiliar - dark matter has always been a question mark. We can make observations of the speed and expansion of the universe, and from those observations we can determine how much mass there should be. We then count up everything in the universe we can see and add it's mass together and compare those two numbers. Our attempts, so far, have shown those numbers to be different. The matter we *should have* to fit into our model of the universe is more than what we can see, so the rest - the unknown - was/is called dark matter.

It's like your spouse buying a bag of cookies and knowing that a full bag of cookies that size weighs 2 pounds. The bag in the cupboard has been opened. You take all the cookies out and find there's only 10 ounces of cookies in the bag. Did the bag actually start with 2lbs? You don't know - the label doesn't say. What you do know is that you only have 10 oz of cookies, and the "dark cookies" are somewhere, you just can't find them.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

onlyfreeman

The topic of dark matter is super interesting, wish I understood more about it.

Aug 10, 2021permalink

The World's top scientists wish they understood more about dark matter since currently, they actually know an or understand, very little about it.

Aug 10, 2021*permalink

Anastigmat

If everything is flying apart according to the Big Bang Theory, then why are these galaxies colliding. Often scientists liken the expanding universe to a balloon being inflated. If so, then you can paint dots on the surface of the balloon and none of then should ever touch each other. The fact that Andromeda is on a collision course with our Milky Way also demonstrates how ludicrous the Big Bang Theory is. In fact, scientists have to invent something unusual, unknown and unproven, called dark energy and dark matter, in order to save the Big Bang Theory from the trash can. Historians of the future will have a lot of work trying to figure out what went wrong with the minds of the scientists who treat the Big Bang Theory as unchallengeable objective truth when there is clear evidence that contradicts it. In fact, many physicists have believes, such as parallel universes and multiple universes, that are weirder than astrology.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Mika Y.

You should read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law

But in short, over "short" distances (in a cosmological sense) effects of gravitational interaction have larger effect than the expansion of the universe.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Digitalis32

The balloon analogy astrophysicists use to explain the expansion of the universe is a gross over simplification - they use it as a way to illustrate cosmic expansion to young children, but scientifically the balloon can be dismissed as a model for the expansion of the universe as each dot doesn't have its own gravity - gravity which warps time and space in interesting ways. The structure of the universe is complicated and dynamic. Strong evidence tells us it is still expanding, however local gravitational effects will draw massive objects together as much as dark energy will rip them apart.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

This is a perfect example of the hyper-certainty of ignorance, i.e., the Dunning-Kruger effect, where those of lesser intelligence think they are far smarter than they really are, and lack the critical faculties to recognize their own limitations. You have no idea of what you're talking about, absolutely none. The public is better off believing the opinions of the thousands of astrophysicists who've actually studied this stuff for decades rather than any internet cranks who even though they have absolutely zero formal education on the subject, think they're smarter than anyone else. Just stop.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

But Laurence, I prefer him thinking whatever than treating him like a fool as you do. You could have a dialog. Remember, some very smart people build nuclear weapons that could end life on earth any moment, and some smart people reverse engineered a virus and were playing with adding pathogens and could end humans on earth.

And the Big Bang isn’t a fact either, it’s a theory. I am not aware of research about how many galaxy collisions would be expected to happen due to the Big Bang. Do we have that number? Maybe we do, would be nice to take a look.

When our cosmological theories require us to imagine 90% of matter and energy is at places but that it’s also 100% invisible AND that it doesn’t even interact with anything else but gravity, to make our theory work, I should make us more humble about everything else we hold true.

Aug 7, 2021*permalink

Digitalis32

Don't worry, it's not the first time I have been called a fool. I know I'm no astrophysicist, though I read articles on various sciences (from reputable sources) with great interest. I have had classical music teachers dismissively call me unteachable, but that was merely a reflection of their own prejudices and ignorance. In time I eventually found teachers that could teach me, and at the moment I'm finishing my degree in classical music. Every work I perform is in a way, a message to all those who said I'd be better off doing something else.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

When you confuse a simple analogy for children for fact and do no rerasearch but paradfe your ignorance, you should expect nothing more.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

Laurence60
Not to in any way criticize the op, but Dunning Krueger effect by itself doesn’t explain skepticism in, for example, a scientific theory by a lay person. In all subjects, no one has infinite time to research every subject thoroughly to make the best informed decision. Human beings make judgement calls multiple times a day based on experience, their own world view, biases and preferences. Time is usually the most critical factor in making a decision and human being decide things on the fly constantly. Also, I don’t think dark matter is well understood, it’s existence is inferred because without it, things don’t make sense. It’s a sort of cosmic K factor, something that must exist in order to explain what we observe based on the physics we understand. Certainly there is more to be discovered.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

Well, of course some are put off that the OP is being criticized, and that's because they exhibit the exact same lack of self awareness concerning their own limitations. Dunning-Kruger strikes again. D-K actually perfectly explains skepticism in widely accepted beliefs held by the scientific community. Dismissing these cosmological models as "just a theory" is the same anti-science nonsense that permeates discussion of any number of other topics, from climate change, to vaccines, to whether the earth is a globe. Yeah, there are still flat-earthers. Again, even though they have absolutely zero, nada, zip, formal education in a subject, they're still convinced they're smarter than everyone else. Just because one doesn't understand something really doesn't mean anything, and they really have no business making grand proclamations on the accuracy of prevailing scientific thought.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

onlyfreeman

If it's not a theory, then what is it, It's literally called the Big Bang theory?

Aug 8, 2021permalink

onlyfreeman Yes, it's called the Big Bang Theory, but this theory has been tested thousands of times and has yet to be disproved. It's accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community, a community that has decades upon decades of advanced study in these fields. These aren't internet cranks/knowitalls like can be found in this thread.

If someone put forth a "theory" that Halley's Comet was made of bubble gum, would you put that "theory" on the same level of probability of truth as the Big Bang Theory? Bubble Gum Halley's, though, sure appears to be obvious idiocy. But they're both "theories", so which one is more believable?

That's an extreme example, but at base the issue is that some theories are more amenable to acceptance than others because they've been tested over and over and over and have never failed. The Big Bang Theory is one of those. Dismissing the Big Bang Theory as "just a theory" is nonsense.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

It’s not as easy as getting some consensus of a few guys. When Einstein proposed some explanation to Plank’s measurement of the constant, it stunned the scientific community because 99.9999% thought we were almost done discovering the laws of nature, and 0.000001% expected the Quantum Mechanic and Relativistic twists.

So no, Big Bang isn’t a fact at all. We like it as a theory, and it’s the best thing we have so far, while there are some other theories out there, and it’s likely things may be a lot more bizarre than we think they are.

Aug 9, 2021*permalink

TiltShiftR

People in the future will view Big Bang Theorists like we do flat-earthers today.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

Absolutely zero astrophysicists that aren't nutcase cranks have claimed that the Big Bang Theory is fact. Of course, you already know that. But it's a "theory" that has never, ever, been disproved. You know that as well. If you can disprove it, we're all waiting to see the proof. Yeah, it could be disproved in the future, but given the testing it's already endured, that's unlikely. Skepticism is fine, but skepticism in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is pure nonsense. Put up or shut up. And of course, none of the internet skeptics can put up. What a surprise.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

That last statement was much better. One of the reason the Big Bang is supported is that without it, there’s no arrow of time.

Aug 10, 2021permalink

Quiverbow

If astrophysicist suggest everything that is and ever was and ever will be in the Universe started with a 'Big Bang', can it not be disproved by asking what it was that caused the Big Bang? Surely something must have been there for that to happen.

Aug 10, 2021permalink

Mika Y.

Our current physics models break down at the extreme temperatures and energy densities involved at Big Bang and for a short period of time after, so currently there is no real consensus about what made the Big Bang happen, or what was before, even if some hypotheses about that are more popular than others.

Kind of like finding a dead person with no obvious cause of death, and no immediate access to sophisticated medical equipment; your observations indicate that the death happened, but you can't yet tell the exact reason, just rule some causes out as impossible or very improbable ("his head is intact, so it wasn't a guillotine").

Aug 10, 2021permalink

Mika, it’s a bit more weird than that, as time is part of the aftermath of that event. So it’s more like being inside Minecraft and wondering what gave rise to the first stones. We’ll have a hard time figuring what is really going on to “Steve”.

Aug 10, 2021permalink

JHFineArt

common sense is uncommon.

Aug 12, 2021permalink

barny101

The gravitational interaction between galaxies does not disprove an expanding universe any more than the gravitational interaction between the earth and the moon disproves an expanding universe. The scales may be different, but the principles are the same.

Aug 12, 2021permalink

Quiverbow, we don’t know if the Big Bang happened. That’s maybe why the models breaks at that point. If we were to only see the raindrops and not the clouds, we may imagine rains came from the stars, and find out that indeed many stars have h and o in them.

barry101, I agree but when we see that gravity acts like there is 900% mass and energy than we see, and 100% of that excess mass and energy in not just invisible but undetectable and does not even interact with our universe except for gravity, at some point calling laymen ignorant will not help much either. We can see the sheer ignorance spans the brightest, that at some point we should all humble down a bit.

I like Douglas Adam’s. The more we know, the more weird things get. Just when we though we could explain everything, things become more buzzard that ever imaginable.

Aug 12, 2021*permalink

Tripodasaurus

When scientists compare the expanding universe to an expanding balloon, presumably the galaxies etc would not just be dots on the surface of the balloon but spread around within the volume of the balloon. Wouldn’t some could collide with others if they were travelling at different speeds?

Aug 12, 2021permalink

Mortal Lion

Intergalactic threesome! Space porn!

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Superglue

Well how else do you expect the Universe to make new galaxies?

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Humans Really Are Made of Stardust, and a New Study Proves It
By Elizabeth Howell January 10, 2017

"For decades, science popularizers have said humans are made of stardust, and now, a new survey of 150,000 stars shows just how true the old cliché is: Humans and their galaxy have about 97 percent of the same kind of atoms, and the elements of life appear to be more prevalent toward the galaxy's center, the research found."

https://www.space.com/35276-humans-made-of-stardust-galaxy-life-elements.html
-----------------

Aug 6, 2021permalink

This Is How We Know There Are Two Trillion Galaxies In The

...https://www.forbes.com › startswithabang › 2018/10/18
Oct 18, 2018 Just how many galaxies are out there used to be a mystery, ... is to view a clear portion of the Universe without intervening matter, stars, ...

----

"The number of stars in a galaxy varies, but assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy means that there are about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion trillion) stars in the observable universe!Feb 19, 2013"

(that's 1 billion trillion) stars in the observable universe UCSB ...http://scienceline.ucsb.edu › getkey

Aug 6, 2021permalink

So with our own star as an average, that would make the universe weigh 2x10*44 grams, for all you metric fans out there.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Only if stars constitute all matter in the Universe. Indeed, dark matter (dust, gas, rogue plnets, etc.) makes up a substantial percentage of matter we can't see.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

What an amazing thing Hubble ST is, one of mankind's finest achievements I think. And the James Webb ST - due to launch later this year - will see even further. Good things await us.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

GeffBourke

Totally agree with you. An amazing achievement by man.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Confused. No, and when looking at the ballet it has to undergo to unfold itself I get nervous. Too many flimsy, moving parts for my liking.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Confusedabit, agree since it’ll be hard to repair it considering where it will operate.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

If it gets off the ground safely and nothing goes wrong with its deployment...

Aug 7, 2021permalink

overzeetop

What is somewhat depressing is that the JWST won't see the same thing - it looks in an entirely different version of the spectrum. It's like having an old digital body that needs repairs and won't last much longer. You're new camera is in the mail...but it's an infrared-only sensor. Still very cool, but it won't make the same kind of pictures as the old one.

Aug 9, 2021permalink

Cerridwen

All the galaxies a stage

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Manublade

The most amazing thing is that we are watching something happened 700 million years ago!

Now in that place maybe there is someone writing on a PC about the pictures captured by its "Hubble"!

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

JHFineArt

...but is also "happening" in the now.
...and giving a preview into the future.
everything depends on perspective and how you see it.

Many PC viewers; One Hubble; Too many galaxies to count in one tiny photo.

Aug 12, 2021permalink

BobT3218

It's amazing to think that every pixel of light in that image could be a sun much like ours with planets much like ours with... I'd better stop there :)

Aug 6, 2021permalink

No need to stop there - each pixel covers groups of sun-like stars.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Even more amazing to think that the pixels left their light source to travel across space long before humans even existed.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Distance 800.000.000 light years (0.8 Gyr) for ARP 195, according to catalogue data. Not exactly real time view. ;-)

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

AstroStan

And at that distance, only about one solar photon every day or so would be captured by a Hubble size aperture.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Hugo808 Never mind humans, life probably hadn't yet begun on Earth (Precambrian era) at the time those photons started their journey.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

MPS Photographic

Even better: each illuminated pixel in the background is another *galaxy*.

Aug 13, 2021permalink

Great Bustard

Hmm. A photo of three galaxies "interacting" and referred to as among the "'weirder and more wonderful galaxies in the universe." OK. : )

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Djehuty

No bokeh, bad photo.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Brotherbill

When will B&H stock a Hubble?

Aug 6, 2021permalink

james_the_first

I'm waiting for the cameraphone clip-on

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Rodrigo Pasiani

Used, soon.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

thx1138

Soft in the corners!

Aug 6, 2021permalink

24Peter

I think the Hubble deep field space photos are awesome! Tax money well spent IMO!

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Meh. I'm waiting for the Giant Magellan Telescope. It will have more megapixels. ;-)

Aug 6, 2021permalink

The telescope is analog - a bunch of mirrors. No pixels. Now the camera/computer attached to it is another story. GMT will have a resolving power 10 times greater than the already amazing Hubble!

Aug 6, 2021permalink

You think they’re putting film behind that thing?

Aug 6, 2021permalink

PhotoFactor

DSLR User says "just think how great it would be if it had a flapping mirror!".
Oh, wait...

Aug 5, 2021permalink

semorg

When you try to fathom the near infinite scale of the universe, it feels so silly when we find ourselves engaged in petty conflicts.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

We are all the center of the Universe, and the universe exists because we can observe it ... so yes, we are small, but also the center of everything around us. Everything just depends on the selected perspective.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Zograf

Right on spot!
There was a famous documentary style film - "The Big Bang"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_(1989_film)
Looking exactly at this - the human endeavours and sufferings projected on the cosmic scale of Universe evolution.
Very interesting film by the way - recommended.

Aug 10, 2021*permalink

Amazing, love these images, as always.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Why do we call them disk galaxies ? because of our technological limitations ? - nothing to say that the whole things are not spherical in shape - from the closest stars to the furthest stars could be thousand of light years distance in all directions but from our view point we could only see them as 2-D - similar to our ancestors saw the moon as a disk ?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Well, distant images show them as disks so why shouldn't they be formad like that?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

thielges

They are disks as can be confirmed by the distant galaxies that we view from the edge, including the middle galaxy in the first image above. We can even tell that our own galaxy is a disk by the concentration of stars in the celestial strip known as the Milky Way.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Terrible Photographer

Why do we call the earth round? Whenever I go to the coast, that ocean is flat. I can tell with my Nikon P1000. Our ancestors were right all along!

Aug 5, 2021permalink

LOL!

Aug 5, 2021permalink

robnich

The irony of Terrible Photographer's humorous comment is that it is at the coast, gazing out from a height at the horizon, that one can clearly see the curvature of the Earth.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Exactly :-)

As a former engineer at merchant ships I have sailed at the "middle" of all big seas and there you really see the curvature when the air is totally clear, and the horizon is sharp as a razorblade whatever direction you look.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Terrible Photographer, if the Earth was flat, you'd be able to see the Eiffel Tower from the Empire State Building with a telescope. Give it a shot and get back to us.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

TP is just trolling. Either that, or he's full of ...(hence his initials ;) )

Aug 6, 2021permalink

TP is kidding, I'm quite sure of it... :-)

Aug 6, 2021permalink

The curvature could possibly the result of optical illusion created by the fault of our eyes - unable to resolve parallel lines to infinity, rendering them as curves - similar to a cheap camera lens

Aug 6, 2021permalink

@robnich: > “… at the coast, gazing out from a height at the horizon, that one can clearly see the curvature of the Earth.”

This is what popular science writers (mostly journalists having little clue about what actually happens in science) made a lot of people believe. The ACTUAL experiments show that IN MOST locations¹⁾, it is impossible to determine the curvature using THIS METHOD: the “measured” values turn out to have no relationship to the actual curvature of Earth.

¹⁾ … among places which seem “reasonably good”.

This is due to effects of the “real” curvature being trumped by the noise (and systematic errors) due to (ir)regularities in atmospheric refraction.

(To understand the strength of the refraction one can remember one number: 7. If Earth’s atmosphere were only 7 times denser, then — provided we ignore the irregularities — the Earth surface would LOOK flat. The refraction would compensate the actual curvature.)

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

@JackM: “if the Earth was flat, you'd be able to see the Eiffel Tower from the Empire State Building with a telescope. ”

And such things have been observed — time-to-time. Very rarely over a sea, though — although I’ve heard such stories. See Fata Morgana…

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

Even if it was head on you could tell it was a disc because the stars at the edges would be the same sort of age as the ones in the middle, on a sphere they would age rapidly as they move over the horizon.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

ilza: umm, no.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

In fact, the end of this section claims that the number “7” I put above should be changed to “6”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looming_and_similar_refraction_phenomena#Looming

Might be correct — I do not remember where I took the refraction coefficient of air from…

Aug 7, 2021permalink

Ilza, what does that have to do with seeing from NY to Paris? Try to stay on topic.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

What does WHAT have to do with that seeing?!

“Seeing far” was already discussed above. Over land it may happen for thousands of kilometers… (Over water, as I said above, it goes for an order of magnitude shorter — probably due to instability of the inversion layer.)

(And, if you read tests of super-tele on DPR, you would know that the angular resolution goes down quickly as the distance grows — due to hot air pockets. Even on a flat planet I doubt that Eiffel could be resolved from NY!)

Aug 8, 2021*permalink

Lensmate

Waiting for the moment when the moment has been waiting all the time...

Aug 5, 2021permalink

derfotograf

Truly amazing how much detail Hubble captures over that distance. 747 light years. Which reminds of Stephen Hawking, who stated the »Anthropic Principle«:

We see the universe as it is because we would not be there to observe it if it were otherwise.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

badi

747 million light-years

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Weia

As far as I know the term is not coined by Hawking. It could be Brandon Carter, according to wikipedia. Or Robert Dicke, or...

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

HowaboutRAW

Arp 195, as in Halton Arp?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Weia

Yes, Halton Arp the astronomer.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

747 million light-years away :). Which means that this amazing event was happening 747 million years ago and we have no idea what's out there right now this moment. Could be nothing :).

Aug 5, 2021permalink

sjazz

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

Life on Earth was completely different in those days when this happened. Who knows what is in there at the moment.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

The force! :)

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Michael Berg

@ecka84 The strange thing about space and time is that it doesn't make sense to speak of what's out there "at this moment". There is no universal time.

Here's an article that explains some of this mind boggling stuff in detail: https://phys.org/news/2014-08-universe.html

Aug 6, 2021permalink

BobT3218

Michael Berg is right. "Now" has meaning only to the observer. Your now is different to my now only the difference is so immeasurably small it doesn't matter but out there, it matters.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

@Michael Berg
I can tell you more :). Time doesn't exist. It's a conceptual construct. We use it to measure the flow of the physical processes, which can happen at different speeds (predictably or not).

Aug 6, 2021permalink

danski0224

The movie "Arrival" (2016) has an interesting concept of time.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Billiam29

The units of measurement for time and the human perception of time are reasonable candidates for debate. But time itself unquestionably exists. I’ll refer you to two episodes of PBS Spacetime on YouTube named ‘The Speed of Light is Not About Light’ and ‘The Geometry of Causality’ for explanation.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

The concept of time is completely made up. It's not real. Even the perception of time by young people and old people is different. We are getting slower with age. Time is how our brain tells the difference between before and after. Physical processes can go slower or faster in certain conditions (temperature, pressure, gravity, external forces). But not backwards. The past is just some previous state of matter. But if we stop the process completely, then it won't be affected by "time". Technically, we all own a time machine, sort of. It's called the fridge. It slows down the "time" for stuff we put inside of it (doesn't stop it though). And people love to fantasize about stuff they don't understand, specially if they can make good money out of it. We can see it happening real-time on DPR every day :). I mean, nonsense like "APS-C catching up with FF" :)), or "APS-C is smaller and cheaper" :)), or "the micro-contrast!" :)). The usual ...

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Billiam29

So if I've translated that correctly...
"I refuse to take into consideration the scientifically based evidence that has been presented to me."
Got it.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Blink an eye and you could miss it but it is OK if what we see now was happening 747 million light years in the past - why 747 but not 748 or 746 because we all familiar with 747 thanks to the Boeing jumbo aircraft 😛😛😛

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

danski0224

There are many things of late that fit this description:

"I refuse to take into consideration the scientifically based evidence that has been presented to me."

It's also fair to say that we only understand the things we understand. Imagine being an old middle ages spice merchant and being teleported to a modern spice aisle in the grocery store... or bringing a smart phone to the person programming ENIAC.

Either would seem impossible within the context of what was known in the past.

Even as we observe these amazing things in the sky, we really don't know where it is exactly at this moment in time... another thing that has to be worked out after warp drive and Stargates...

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

@Billiam29
There's no evidence. Only assumptions. There are no future points in time that already exist. We can only predict the upcoming state of matter (and position) in physical processes (to a degree), because they obey the rules of physics (as we discovered).

747kk light-years (possibly inaccurate) is the distance. Which means that we have to wait another 747kk years for the light to travel and reach the Earth so we would see what's happening there now (or rather 747kk years ago). And if we take out "time" from the equation, it would still work. Because globally it's unnecessary. We add it only to understand how long it takes for the light to travel the distance. Because we care. Because we can't actually wait that long :). Because we are mortal and "time" is precious to us. Because we use it to measure our existence. And without it, there's only one huge end of the world out there. Basically, we are happy to know that we still have plenty of "time" :).

Aug 7, 2021permalink

Weia

Awful!
In fact they mostly pass through each other, with some gravitational effects but hardly any star to star collision. So empty a galaxy is.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

My understanding is that WE are in the process of colliding with the Andromeda galaxy.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Yea, true but not tomorrow or next week :-)

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Well you need to be patient...

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Terrible Photographer

Maybe next election cycle

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Ed Ingold

With the Andromeda galaxy - not for another billion or two years. The Magellanic Clouds are another matter, along with a half dozen or so miniature galaxies recently discovered.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

"In fact they mostly pass through each other.... hardly any star to star collision. So empty a galaxy is." That's what I keep telling Han and Chewie but they don't listen to me when I tell them it'll be safe to go warp speed. They keep telling me we'll crash into an astroid.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

@Weia: > “they mostly pass through each other, with some gravitational effects ”

If by “some gravitational effects” you mean “a complete loss of the preceding structure of these galaxies” — then yes.

> “but hardly any star to star collision.”

There is a lot of star collisions happening in the nuclei of these galaxies. So for the stars which were not in a nucleus before, but now are — it should be a major change…

Aug 6, 2021permalink

BobT3218

Yes, while we see it as a glowing blob of light, someone there on a plant looking out may see it as not much different to how we see the Milky Way only perhaps messier.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

No, our galaxy does not have any Messier number!

Aug 6, 2021permalink

babart

Wonderful to see!

Aug 5, 2021permalink

(unknown member)

In the end they will have 1 galaxy and peace.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Battersea

Is that space sex between galaxies?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

A threesome - and in plain view. Get a room already!

Aug 5, 2021permalink

SomeguyPNW

People who own telescopes are pervs

Aug 7, 2021permalink

they don't get any otherwise.

Aug 8, 2021permalink

dmanthree

If that's what they looked like 747 million years ago, got to wonder what's going on there now?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Indeed. We call that time on Earth the Tonian period, during which it's thought that animal life was just beginning. Over 500 million years before the dinosaurs appeared. Mind boggling. (source: Wikipedia)

Aug 5, 2021*permalink

dmanthree

Hard to fathom the scale of these images. Entire galaxies interacting? Damn...

Aug 5, 2021permalink

We are 100%, not Alone in the Universe. Love Hubble, The James Webb Space Telescope hopefully will be joining you soon.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Battersea

Yea but reaching anyone else? We are pretty much alone on that basis.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

If there are currently intelligent beings within those galaxies who are able to observe the Earth, not sure they would think it worth trying to contact us, because they would be observing the primitive beginnings of animal life on our planet.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

Franz Weber

Sometimes I wonder if there is actually intelligent live in our galaxy

Aug 5, 2021permalink

John Bean (UK)

"Sometimes I wonder if there is actually intelligent live in our galaxy"

I've often wondered that too, especially on this planet.

Aug 5, 2021*permalink

Yes even if they could observe Earth as it is now, it's debatable whether they would consider it worth getting in touch.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

j102030

Of course we are not alone. We have each other. And from the looks of it, most of us can't stand each other.

As for intelligent life elsewhere, I'm highly skeptical. Even if the conditions on some other planet were ideal for life to emerge, and even if these life forms would evolve to something we would call intelligent, what are the odds that this will happen at the same time as life on earth and not hundreds of millions of years apart?

Aug 5, 2021permalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

You can't say with 100% certainty that we (living things on Earth) are not alone in the universe. In order to do that, you would need proof. It's the same as saying a god exists.

In regards to "...the conditions on some other planet were ideal for life to emerge....what are the odds that this will happen at the same time as life on earth...?" I think very good, given that there are estimated to be over 700 quintillion planets in the universe. I think that it would be more likely for conditions to exist for life to form after the big bang at the same time (relatively speaking) than at different times. And once mankind (or any life on any planet) blows themselves up, the cockroaches will evolve with the brains and hands to build new weapons on Earth,

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Djehuty

Until someone makes the tech to fold space anyway.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Michael Berg

@BackToNature it seems like a foregone conclusion, if only from a statistical viewpoint. But the simple fact is that we don't have any evidence that life ever started anywhere else but earth. We have only one datapoint which is not enough to extrapolate from. Claiming that we are not alone because it "feels right" just isn't very good science.

Maybe life does exist everywhere. Or maybe the process of starting life is so rare, that given the age of the universe, it has only happened once so far. We just don't know, because we don't really know exactly how life began on our planet.

Italian scientist Enrico Fermi wondered about this too. He famously stated that if life is everywhere, then where is it? Why aren't we seeing evidence of life?

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Franz Weber

Given the fact that isolated societies have developed similar habits over time, it is more than likely that somewhere is a show broadcasted with a title like “Alpha Centaury got Talent“

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Djehuty

It would be arrogance to assume humanity is the only life around, even a broken clock is right twice, our own galaxy is mindblowingly vast let alone our cluster and Universe. What if everyone else is advanced enough that they don't want to be seen or too primitive that they won't be seen. What if we're the ants in the galactic community and are mere animals, that being said we should treat life on Earth better first before thinking of life elsewhere.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

j102030

We can say for sure that humanity is not the only life around. There are countless other animals and organisms other than humans.

But why would it be arrogance to assume there's no other intelligent (intelligence being a human concept) life form around? What is there to be proud about if indeed we were the only ones? And what's this idea of being "advanced"? Advanced towards what? Humans aren't more advanced than other life forms on earth.

Even considering the mindblowing vastness of the universe it's still completely possible that there has never been intelligent life outside of earth so far.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

danski0224

Anyone else seen the Russian sci fi flick "Blackout"?

If an alien race had the technology to travel between the stars, I'd bet that outcome is far more likely than the "how's it going over there" in Star Trek.

The film is cut down and dubbed in English, at least in the USA, but I found the story line to be pretty darn good.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Jeff Greenberg

-----
> We are 100%, not Alone in the Universe

charfata kablanga batatak abalaganga mannaggka staklatta

Aug 6, 2021permalink

Battersea

@ j102030 Technologically advanced. If you don't understand the concept an explanation won't help.

Aug 6, 2021permalink

j102030

@Battersea Well, that's precisely the purpose of explanations - to elucidate concepts when someone doesn't understand them. But I think it's rather the case that you don't quite understand the concept yourself and therefore you can't explain what it means.
The point I was trying to make is, of course, that it's silly to say that an animal like an ant is primitive compared to humans. Evolutionarily ants are as or more advanced than humans if we're just looking at how long they've been around and how successful they are at reproducing. Saying otherwise would imply that ants are at some early stage of development and humans are at a later stage. Does that mean in a few hundred thousand years ants will invent steam engines? "Primitive" and "advanced" only makes sense if talking about different stages in the development of one species.

Aug 6, 2021*permalink

No need to "wonder" - I KNOW there's no intelligent life here, or at least no wisdom.

Aug 7, 2021permalink

These photos are Stellar! I can't imagine how much more detail will be seen and discovered with WEBB.

Aug 5, 2021permalink

PhotoFactor

I see what you did there...

Aug 5, 2021permalink