tell me about astronomy

i am very interested in astronomy, and i know there are people on this site who know about it, wether its a tiny bit, or they know a lot about it. i would love to know more about the universe, infact i want to know more than the universe.
for example, dark matter and dark energy, people have tryed to tell me about it, but i either forget, or i just dont understand, could someone please tell me about that.
i also dont understand string theory, well i think string theory is the one im thinking of, the one with the donut shaped universes all next to each other and there are like 15 dimentions or something.

and i generally want to know ANYTHING that people know about it. i already know a few things, maily just to do with our solar system, and even at that, id still love to know a bit more.

so, anyone know anything?

Well it seems like you've got some things mixed up.

As far as I know, no-one can really know for sure what shape the universe is. It all depends on the different mathematical model used. Some physcists argue that it is a torus (donut shaped) whilst others believe it is more saddle-shaped. There are other theories, but those are just the ones I know.

String theory states that there are a bunch of dimensions (11 I think) and that they are all coiled up really tight inside the 4 known dimensions we already have (time included). It also states that all particles are just vibrating 'strings' of energy. The reason why it is given credence is because it unifies the 4 fundamental interactions (wikipedia them) into one equation.

Also if you're still interested in astronomy here are some good things to go look up: gamma ray bursts, supermassive black holes, quasars, red giants and nebulae (specifically the pillars of creation)

Also, check out these pictures:

Top 10 Hubble images

thanks, ill check all those things out.

and those pics, ive seen tons of pics like that, and ive been wondering, are they the ACTUAL picture that hubble telescope gives, or is it some like artist things or something. its just that they look so cool and unbelievable

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Originally Posted by Goldney

Well it seems like you've got some things mixed up.

As far as I know, no-one can really know for sure what shape the universe is. It all depends on the different mathematical model used. Some physcists argue that it is a torus (donut shaped) whilst others believe it is more saddle-shaped.

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Of course, they're talking about 4-dimensional tori and saddles, not the 2-dimensional ones.

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Originally Posted by slash112

thanks, ill check all those things out.

and those pics, ive seen tons of pics like that, and ive been wondering, are they the ACTUAL picture that hubble telescope gives, or is it some like artist things or something. its just that they look so cool and unbelievable

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Some of them may be false color, but other than that, they're real. Here's a nice one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hu..._rez_edit1.jpg

Yeah, it's that big. Each of those points of light contains hundreds of billions of stars and each star has a handful of planets.

yea, ive seen that pic, that was when they widened the lens fully or something then pointed it at a big bit of black nothing, then they saw that. i saw it on the TV

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Originally Posted by slash112

yea, ive seen that pic, that was when they widened the lens fully or something then pointed it at a big bit of black nothing, then they saw that. i saw it on the TV

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The Hubble doesn't use a lens.

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Originally Posted by esfx

The Hubble doesn't use a lens.

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well they did something, i cant remember what they did. do you know what is was? maybe it was something similar.

oh yea i just remembered the hubble uses mirrors. woops

They focused on a dark part of the sky and did an 11 day exposure.

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Originally Posted by esfx

They focused on a dark part of the sky and did an 11 day exposure.

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oh right, oops:oops:

I like this:

Here what I know (from documentaries, books, online sources and second hand knowledge)

Random Facts:

-Jupiter "red eye" is so massive you can fit 200 earths in it!
-The milky way galaxy (ours) and andromeda (close relative) will collide in 100 billion (give or take a couple billion) years
-The best place to search for alien life is on Titan (Saturn's Moon)
-Gamma ray bursts are so powerful they are beyond fucking imaging!! They typically last 1 second "the amount of energy released by 1000 stars like the Sun over their entire lifetime!" (WOAH)
-Our moon was formed when Earth collided with an object about the size of itself billions of years ago* (*guessing)
- In the early formation of our solar system our sun hogged about 99% of all the matter available


Hopefully I got these facts right


I also suggest for anyone intrested to watch "The Universe" program by the history channel. Very interesting and easy to follow.:)

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Originally Posted by Dog Biscuits

Here what I know (from documentaries, books, online sources and second hand knowledge)

Random Facts:

-Jupiter "red eye" is so massive you can fit 200 earths in it!
-The milky way galaxy (ours) and andromeda (close relative) will collide in 100 billion (give or take a couple billion) years
-The best place to search for alien life is on Titan (Saturn's Moon)
-Gamma ray bursts are so powerful they are beyond fucking imaging!! They typically last 1 second "the amount of energy released by 1000 stars like the Sun over their entire lifetime!" (WOAH)
-Our moon was formed when Earth collided with an object about the size of itself billions of years ago* (*guessing)
- In the early formation of our solar system our sun hogged about 99% of all the matter available


Hopefully I got these facts right


I also suggest for anyone intrested to watch "The Universe" program by the history channel. Very interesting and easy to follow.:)

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wow, that is a lot of energy from those gamma rays!!!

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Originally Posted by Dog Biscuits

Here what I know (from documentaries, books, online sources and second hand knowledge)

Random Facts:

-Jupiter "red eye" is so massive you can fit 200 earths in it!

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More like 2 Earths.

uh huh, though im the one who is asking about astronomy, i do know one thing, and that is that the red spot is bigger than earth, its probably around 2 earths, but i think its a bit less.
p.s. jupiters volume is the same as earths volume times 1,300 approx, just thought id add that in

nope, don't know anything about astronomy. but am I the only person who thinks this is awesome? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fqE01YYWs

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Originally Posted by lagunagirl

nope, don't know anything about astronomy. but am I the only person who thinks this is awesome? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fqE01YYWs

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what am I hearing now?

Is the entire thing the sound Jupiter is making? Or is it that background noise?

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Originally Posted by Dog Biscuits

what am I hearing now?

Is the entire thing the sound Jupiter is making? Or is it that background noise?

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it's the sound jupiter makes. It explains the whole thing in the description box on the side. Lots of stuff about electromagnetic frequencies in jupiter's atmosphere or something. I'm not really going to attempt to explain it because, like I said, I know nothing about astronomy. I just thought it was really fascinating.

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Originally Posted by lagunagirl

it's the sound jupiter makes. It explains the whole thing in the description box on the side. Lots of stuff about electromagnetic frequencies in jupiter's atmosphere or something. I'm not really going to attempt to explain it because, like I said, I know nothing about astronomy. I just thought it was really fascinating.

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that is freaking amazing!

If you are really intrested in it, go to your bookstore and buy A Brief History Of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking

Amazing books.

I read A Brief History Of Time then I went to Europe in 2007, found it in a bookstore in Paris. Very deep shit. But even for a 23 year old book its still a great read. I particularly liked the section where he talks about a theory in which universes might propogate like biological entities.

A physicist named Smolin once suggested that if the six fundamental constants of the universe were randomised at the 'birth' of a universe, and that the formation of a blackhole (theoretically) created a new universe at its terminus, then a sort of natural selection on a multi-universal scale would take place. It's been argued that if you change anyone of these 6 constants, life as we know it (or even matter as we know it) would cease to exist and the universe would be an empty void of particle soup. Or stars would churn up their fuel far too fast for life to evolve on any planets, and as a byproduct of that, they wouldnt be large enough to evolve into supernova to create a blackhole that could theoretically create a new universe. And ultimately life on Earth, and indeed the materials that make up the very planet we stand on are dependant on the life cycle of stars and the fusion of atoms above Fe (iron) on the periodic table (only formed during supernova explosions).

The bones of the theory being that only universes that are capable of creating blackholes will propagate new universes (daughter universes), and those that can't create black holes will not 'pass on their genes', as it were. It's a very interesting and completely unprovable theory but still a complete delight to read, as it postulates a reason for the anthropological arguement, why we exist in a universe that is 'fine-tuned' for life. We don't. We live in a universe that has constants that allow supernova to form black holes, and as a by product also form atoms of high mass, which incidentally form planets on which we can evolve and live :)

interesting stuff guys thanks. im definetaly going to look further into some of that