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10x More Galaxies Than Previously Thought


Waspie_Dwarf

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Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought

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The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to a deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories.

Astronomers came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. 

The results have clear implications for galaxy formation, and also helps shed light on an ancient astronomical paradox — why is the sky dark at night?

arrow3.gif  Read more: HubbleSite

 

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Really interesting article. It's difficult visualizing just how vast the universe is, and the following 'grain of sand' example makes it that much more mind blowing:

If you hold up a grain of sand, the patch of sky it covers contains 10,000 galaxies.

A grain of sand may be tiny, but the patch of sky it covers when you hold it up at arm’s length is many light years in diameter due to the truly astronomical distances involved. Thanks to observations by telescopes such as Hubble, we can estimate that there are over one hundred billion galaxies in our universe – and they’re just the ones we could see. So, by knowing the proportion of the sky that the grain of sand is covering, we can estimate the number of galaxies in that area.

Source: Physics.org

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The odds now dictate there is other life out there...scary eh?..too bad religion takes the hit regarding life and how earth/man fits into the grand scheme of things.

Because earth is just a mote in God's eye.

 

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If there are ten times more galaxies than previously thought does that partially or wholly explain the mystery of dark matter - i.e. there is no dark matter, just more galaxies?

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3 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

If there are ten times more galaxies than previously thought does that partially or wholly explain the mystery of dark matter - i.e. there is no dark matter, just more galaxies?

No, cause the dark matter was invoked to explain star velocities within galaxies.

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18 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

If there are ten times more galaxies than previously thought does that partially or wholly explain the mystery of dark matter - i.e. there is no dark matter, just more galaxies?

I had the same thought (well,  I guess almost everyone had it). 

 

15 hours ago, bmk1245 said:

No, cause the dark matter was invoked to explain star velocities within galaxies.

As far as I remember (but I could be wrong) dark matter was postulated to explain more galaxy clusters' velocity and the anisotropy in the CMB rather than star velocities within galaxies. 

 

But even if you are right (or more probably we both are?) the question is still legit. 

 

Waiting for Waspie or sepulchrave on this! 

Edited by Parsec
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I'm thinking I am agreeing with Parsec, not that I'm an expert. But I do have a very good memory, and what I remember about the theory of dark matter was that the expansion of galaxies (indeed the universe) required a lot more matter, and thus was born the explanation of dark matter and dark energy (to hold things together.).

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Although dark matter has not been directly observed, its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects such as the motions of visible matter, gravitational lensing, its influence on the universe's large-scale structure, and its effects in the cosmic microwave background. 

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

It could be a lot more complex then that little blurb, but more matter would seem s to result in more gravity, which would result in those increased motions, lensing, and influence on the structure of the universe.

Edited by DieChecker
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One of the major pieces of evidence for dark matter is the analysis of the results of gravitational lensing. 

When the light from a distant object, such as a quasar passes directly between a massive object (e.g. a galaxy cluster) and an observer the curvature of space time caused by the massive object distorts the image of the more distant object. Analysis of this distortion can be used to determine the mass of the galaxy cluster.

Such analysis shows much more mass than can be observed directly... dark matter in other words.

These observations mean that dark matter can not be explained simply by the discovery of more galaxies since the galaxies themselves have more mass than can be accounted for by baryonic  (normal) matter.

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7 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

One of the major pieces of evidence for dark matter is the analysis of the results of gravitational lensing. 

When the light from a distant object, such as a quasar passes directly between a massive object (e.g. a galaxy cluster) and an observer the curvature of space time caused by the massive object distorts the image of the more distant object. Analysis of this distortion can be used to determine the mass of the galaxy cluster.

Such analysis shows much more mass than can be observed directly... dark matter in other words.

These observations mean that dark matter can not be explained simply by the discovery of more galaxies since the galaxies themselves have more mass than can be accounted for by baryonic  (normal) matter.

Thank you Waspie. 

Just to see if I got it right, that would mean that the percentage of baryonic matter is higher (instead of 4.6% of the total energy/mass of the universe) or at this point dark matter has to be proportionally more as well,  so nothing actually changes, we just have more total mass in the universe? 

 

I don't know if I wrote it clear enough. 

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I thought these two lines in the article were interesting when read together....

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This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies. The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low.

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"It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied. 

Does that mean we've already studied billions of galaxies? Or perhaps we've just recorded what we could about each? Perhaps only as automatically collected and crunched data?

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7 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

These observations mean that dark matter can not be explained simply by the discovery of more galaxies since the galaxies themselves have more mass than can be accounted for by baryonic  (normal) matter.

So if a galaxy has more mass than can be accounted for, that means dark matter must exist within galaxies. If so, there must be dark matter within our galaxy, i.e. the Milky Way. Where is it within the Milky Way? There mustn't be any near us - i.e. within the solar system - because the equations describing gravitational fields work perfectly well. Seems a bit of a coincidence that there is lots of the stuff within the Milky Way, but none of it is where we are.      

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56 minutes ago, Derek Willis said:

Where is it within the Milky Way?  

 

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The visible disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in a much larger, roughly spherical halo of dark matter. The dark matter density drops off with distance from the galactic center.

Source: Wikipedia

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7 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

 

Source: Wikipedia

As you know - but seem not to have mentioned - the dark matter halo is a hypothetical component of spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way, proposed as an explanation of why the stars at the outer reaches rotate around the galactic center faster than they ought to due to the known baryonic matter. So if dark matter exists where we are - i.e. within the solar system - why doesn't it effect the motions of the planets around the sun? The hypothesis is that the dark matter is spread out so thinly within the Milky Way - and well beyond the limits of the baryonic matter - that its effects on the motions of planets around stars is negligible. So, as a starting point the hypothetical nature of the dark matter halo has to take into account the fact that there are no observable variations on planetary motion as predicted by Newton/Einstein. Currently, the pseudo-spherical thinly distributed halo hypothesis is the best one that explains why the outer stars move faster, and at the same time explains why there are no effects on planetary motion. But at this point - i.e. until there is some actual evidence - it remains an hypothesis.

I wonder if the situation with dark matter is similar to the situation with the ether in the 19th century. Dark matter is proposed to have some mysterious properties - namely that it interacts with other matter via gravity, but not by the other forces, e.g. electromagnetism. The ether was believed to be infinitely rigid, and yet perfectly permeable. That didn't seem to make sense. Experiments were unable to detect the ether. Then, along comes Einstein who demonstrates that there is no need for the ether after all. I wonder if the work on the Higgs Field, which suggests at least some mass is imparted to matter rather than being intrinsic, will lead to a totally different understanding of what mass is. We already know that mass is a relative property and can be dependent on motion (i.e. as Einstein demonstrated) and somewhere in that ill-defined situation of mass and inertia being one and the same, I think is the clue to all this. Hopefully in the not too distant future, someone will come along - in the way Einstein did with the ether - and point out that our whole understanding of what mass is, is totally mistaken.

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Im sure there are million of galaxys out there space dont end it just goes on and on and on

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Somebody call the cops and finger charles- if i don't return.

Thinking i have solved the equation. The solution simply requ

 

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9 hours ago, Poppi said:

Somebody call the cops and finger charles- if i don't return.

Thinking i have solved the equation. The solution simply requ

 

For real? 

 

Poppi, we all know that the solution to the equation is 42, we just don't know why. 

Edited by Parsec
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On 17/10/2016 at 10:23 PM, DieChecker said:

I thought these two lines in the article were interesting when read together....

Does that mean we've already studied billions of galaxies? Or perhaps we've just recorded what we could about each? Perhaps only as automatically collected and crunched data?

I guess he means recorded, not directly studied. 

 

I ask Waspie's (or whoever can know the answer) help on this, but are we able to detect all the baryonic matter of a galaxy or a galaxy cluster? 

Or only their stars an dust illuminated by stars' light? 

Could it be possible that stars have actually a lot more Jupiter's type of planets around them and/or there are way more brown dwarfs that theorised? 

 

Could it be that actually dark matter is simply baryonic matter we can't detect yet? 

 

This news together with this one regarding the possibility that actually we could not need dark energy to explain the universe's expansion is really fascinating. 

 

We're living in interesting times! 

Edited by Parsec
Extended help request to everybody
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On 10/22/2016 at 6:11 AM, Parsec said:

For real? 

 

Poppi, we all know that the solution to the equation is 42, we just don't know why. 

We'll need to build a gigantic computer the size of the Moon to backward crunch the numbers to find that out. B) We could call it the Large Towel Processor.

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On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 0:56 AM, coolguy said:

Im sure there are million of galaxys out there space dont end it just goes on and on and on

Sure...and as man  gains new and more advanced technology to reach further afield and bring us back the info, more will be found.

i do  think NASA  are fully aware there is so much more to find, but this is a timeless task and one which must be passed through to our future generations.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It turns out, what we call the observable universe — the part visible within our cosmological horizon, A.K.A. the final frontier — has at least 10 times more galaxies than the mid 1990s Hubble Deep Field images count of about 100 to 200 billion.

Using collected data from various deep space images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other sources, an international team of scientists led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, created a 3D map of the known universe. Mathematical models were used to calculate for galaxies current telescopes cannot yet observe. These showed that, to make sense of the numbers and the maps, about 90% of galaxies are far, far away and too faint to be seen clearly.

Article continues here:  http://futurism.com/the-universe-is-far-bigger-than-we-thought-and-it-has-10x-more-galaxies/

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2 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

It turns out, what we call the observable universe — the part visible within our cosmological horizon, A.K.A. the final frontier — has at least 10 times more galaxies than the mid 1990s Hubble Deep Field images count of about 100 to 200 billion.

Using collected data from various deep space images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other sources, an international team of scientists led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, created a 3D map of the known universe. Mathematical models were used to calculate for galaxies current telescopes cannot yet observe. These showed that, to make sense of the numbers and the maps, about 90% of galaxies are far, far away and too faint to be seen clearly.

Article continues here:  http://futurism.com/the-universe-is-far-bigger-than-we-thought-and-it-has-10x-more-galaxies/

it seems we are even smaller in the scheme of things than previously thought and yet religious folk will continue in their hubris to believe their earthly deities.

 

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  • The title was changed to 10x More Galaxies Than Previously Thought

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