Questions tagged [expansion]
Questions about the increase with time of distance between two distant points in the Universe.
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How do we know the expansion of the universe is not centered around our position?
It is my understanding that the red shift of galaxies in whatever direction we look shows the universe is expanding in every direction around us. That could be explained in two ways:
A (accepted): The ...
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Where does the energy of light go, when it red-shifts?
When talking about the expansion of the universe, it is said that it can be proven by the red-shifting of light.(As we would need higher than lightspeed to get this redshift by the Doppler effect)
I ...
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What equation tells you how far in space you can go from a point and return?
We know that hubble expansion increases the distance between points in space, and that the cosmological event horizon represents the distance from the observer at which objects are receding faster ...
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Are there any galaxies which fell out of sight horizon due to cosmic expansion?
If farthest galaxies run away from us with acceleration making them exceed speed of light, we should expect them to disappear from sky among time with increasing quantity. Did we observe this? Can we ...
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Space expansion in layman terms
So far I got to understand the expansion of space is not to be understood as stars drifting further apart through space. There's something more fundamental - e.g. you can't simply measure speed of it, ...
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On what scale does the universe expand?
According to the theory (or my understanding of it), the universe is not only expanding, but speeding up.
If the galaxies are moving apart, are the solar systems within them also moving apart from ...
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Is there physical evidence to distinguish between the expansion of space and an anthropocentric universe?
When we look in all directions, we see distant objects red-shifted, with the size of the red-shift correlated with the distance from us.
As I understand it, the consensus among cosmologists is that ...
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How do we know we're not getting bigger?
Alright so I've been thinking a lot about how the universe expands and I've always wondered if we're getting bigger as well. Since everything would be getting larger at an equal rate (tools of ...
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How many galaxies disappear beyond the Hubble Bubble horizon every year now? [duplicate]
The accelerating expansion of space means that the space between us and far away galaxies expands faster than light can travel through space. There is a horizon of possible observation beyond which ...
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Will we start seeing galaxies disappear due to Universe expansion? [duplicate]
Does the fact that universe is currently expanding at an accelerating rate means that far far away objects (FAO) might start disappearing with time, set aside the "red shift"?
I'm saying this ...
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Does a measuring stick with a size of a billion lightyears in intergalactic space keep the same length in expanding space?
Imagine a measuring stick (a rod or ruler) made of ordinary matter which has a length of a billion lightyears. The space surrounding the ruler expands. Will the ruler keep the same length by the ...
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Do all objects get larger in an "expanding universe"?
I'm envisioning an analogy of the universe as a plane with marbles in that plane to represent different planets.
Now, if this plane expands how does this work? I assume that it is not like 'nothing' ...
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In km/h, what actually is the "speed" of Andromeda away from us: cosmologically?
Andromeda is about 2.5 million ly away.
Actually, in this universe, at what "speed" (in km/h) are two objects separating cosmologically - I mean strictly due to the "expansion of the universe" - if ...
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When the universe expands does it create new space, matter, or something else?
I am wondering what exactly is meant when it is said the universe expands. Does it simply create new space for matter to fill, does it also create new matter/dark matter to fill that space, or am I ...
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Will gravitational waves too far away ever reach us?
Gravity is the curvature of spacetime, and its effects travel at lightspeed. However, space is expanding; eventually, light from distant galaxies will become more and more redshifted, and we will no ...
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How does the concept of a universe with no center work?
I understand basically that the universe is homogenous (looks the same from every point) and I was told in my astro class that it's supposed to have no center, but how that works boggles my mind. I ...
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Does the accelerating expansion of the Universe contradict Hubble's law?
Hubble's law gives a linear relationship between the distance to a galaxy and it's recessional speed.
Observations of distant type 1a supernovae showed that their red shift (and therefore their ...
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Cosmological redshift vs doppler redshift
I'm reading Harrison's "Cosmology: Science of the universe" because Harrison focuses on the distinction between cosmological redshift (he calls it expansion redshift) and the Doppler redshift.
He ...
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Farthest distance two objects are "gravitationally bounded", considering expansion of the Universe
The narrative is: "on greater scales the expansion of the Universe dominates, but on smaller scales gravitationally bounded objects still stay bounded". But how small is meant by "...
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Expansion of Space
If Space is expanding between the Galaxies then why isn't it also expanding between the Stars within the Galaxies as well ? In fact why isn't Space expanding within our Solar System ?
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How far apart has the sun drifted from Alpha Centari due to the expansion of the universe since its formation?
From what I read Alpha Centauri formed 250 million years before the sun which was 4.85 billion years. So how far apart were they when the sun formed vs what they are now?
The expansion of the universe ...
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Are there other proofs of the expanding universe apart from the redshift?
The theory of the expanding universe is so widely accepted, that the redshift is sometimes used as a measure of distance to far away galaxies.
But is it still possible that the redshift is caused by ...
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Could there really be a preferential direction to the speed of light?
This question is inspired by a recent video by Veritasium Why no one has measured the speed of light linked below.
To summarize the video, Derek points out that it is impossible to measure the one-way ...
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Local neighbourhood and Superclusters
Recently, I watched a YouTube video on Limits of Humanity, by famous Youtube channel Kurzgesagt. It talked about the local neighbourhood, and it is the only group of galaxies which are gravitationally ...
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In an isolated binary system, can the expansion of the universe balance out collapsing orbit due to gravitational waves?
We know that binary systems slowly lose energy due to gravitational waves from the objects moving through spacetime and that if the objects are compact and massive enough, the mergers happen in time ...
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Does the gravity oppose to the Universe expansion?
I'm trying to understanding the very basic of the current cosmology.
I searched in the old questions but I found nothing that answers specifically to my questions.
As far as I understand, we have to ...
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How distant were the furthest currently-observable cosmic events when their currently-observed radiation was emitted?
(Edited for clarity. Thanks to James K and Connor Garcia.)
This question about the most distant, observable cosmic objects made me wonder if we know the distance that was between us and them at the ...
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How is the Universe's Expansion Accelerating if the Hubble Constant is Decreasing?
I am just getting into the field of cosmology and was wondering what it means practically to say that the Hubble Constant is decreasing while the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. I am ...
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How far would EGSY8p7 be away now?
Apparently EGSY8p7 is the object with the longest light travel distance, 13.2 gly or a redshift of z = 8.68 (Wikipedia).
So the light took 13.2 billion years to travel to us from that object, but we ...
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Is expanding universe adding potential energy?
A system with two massive bodies has potential energy proportional to their separation. Since the universe is expanding, is the potential (and total?) energy of such a system slowly increasing? What ...
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Expansion again: where does the energy come from?
Is it sensible to ask for the overall increase in potential energy when looking at the baryonic mass in the universe moving away from each other, that is, moving against the direction of the force ...
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Distinction between metric expansion and objects just moving apart from each other?
I see explanations likes this:
Galaxies and other sources, then, are not strictly expanding away from each other but rather are attached to the fixed grid on the expanding fabric of spacetime. Thus, ...
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If an object 1 billion light years away emits light, does it take more than 1 billion years to reach us because of the expansion of the universe?
From page 7 of the recent (September 26, 2020) edition of Science News Magazine:
Detected May 21, 2019, the gravitational waves came from a source about 17 billion light-years from Earth, making this ...
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How can an infinite universe expand?
I understand the expansion of the universe as actually an increase in the ratio of space to matter. Is this a correct understanding? Otherwise, I don't understand how an infinite structure can expand....
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How can gravity lead to the Big Crunch scenario?
According to modern cosmology, space is expanding, causing proper distances (but not comoving distances) to increase between galaxies. In the Big Crunch hypothesis, gravity halts and reverses the ...
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Dark Energy Expansion
The new Cosmos extra features mentions that at about 6,771,500,000 years ago the universe began an accelerated expansion. How do we know this? What evidence do we have for this renewed and accelerated ...
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Is the age of the Universe really 13.8 billion years?
Ok, I know this has been asked by a lot of people, but my reason for asking this question is a bit different. Please read further.
I was watching a video by Fermilab (Start at 6:30, at 8:30 he ...
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Heavy star and redshift
A heavy star should look redshifted, due to gravitational time dilation. How is that incorporated into the calculations of distances to the stars, or is it negligible?
How about an entire region of ...
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Why would galaxies (and galaxy clusters) be unaffected by the expansion of space?
"Gravity holds galaxies and cluster of galaxies together, and they get farther away from each other--without themselves changing in size--as the universe expands." Quoted from the OpenStax ...
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Can the Event Horizon Telescope been used to find intergalactic distances?
Now that we have the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), why can't we just guess and check intergalactic distances by changing the EHT's focal length? For instance why don't we take another picture of M87,...
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How is the Milky Way on a collision course with Andromeda when the universe is expanding? [duplicate]
At some time in the future it is said our galaxy will collide with Andromeda. Yet at the same time the universe is expanding at a ever-accelerating pace. Using the old raisin-in-the-baking-loaf-of-...
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How does the hypothesis of the "inconstant Hubble constant" solve the current crisis in cosmology?
It was published in a paper more or less like two months ago. I'd like to know also if more accurate measurements are necessary to close the gap between the model of the universe and the data reported....
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Evolution of the Hubble parameter
In the lambda-CDM model describing an accelerating Universe, the Hubble parameter is currently decreasing with time. Will it continue to decrease forever?
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Can we consider the Universe to be some kind of 3-sphere?
This is probably a naive question. I'm learning a bit of cosmology and I've recently covered the so called angular size-redshift relation, which states that in an expanding Universe the angular size ...
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Why are galaxies distributed as walls and voids, or spider webs?
I have wondered why the "walls and voids" of the cosmological galaxy distribution seem to resemble a "foam", like rising bread that's ready to fall, with "voids" corresponding to empty bubbles in the ...
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Do objects look larger the further away they are, beyond z=1?
I stumbled upon this text which illustrates and says:
We find that as the object is moved to higher redshifts its angular
size first decreases (as naively expected) but soon begins to increase
...
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Is there an objective difference between space expansion and reduction in speed of light
I just read an article about the cosmological model of an inflationary universe. As you probably know it basically states that space itself is subject to an expansion over time.
Since there is no ...
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How did scientists come to the conclusion that it is space that is expanding?
How did scientists come to the conclusion that it is space that is expanding and not galaxies moving away from each other as in a giant explosion?
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Why is the Cosmic Microwave Background evidence of a hotter, denser early Universe?
In his book Gravitation and cosmology, Steven Weinberg says that CMB makes it "difficult to doubt that the universe has evolved from a hotter, denser early stage".
In my understanding, the ...
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Did Gaia actually generate complete light curves for 212 Cepheids in other galaxies?
The recent BBC news item Gaia clocks speedy cosmic expansion says that a recent Gaia measurement of 212 Cepheid variables in other galaxies within the local group yields a Hubble constant of ~73 km/s/...
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