Nasa.gov: NASA's Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe

[NavyDave]

Is the speed of Dark faster than the Speed of light? And if so would does that mean for the faster than light travel theory applied to worm holes?

[Darth Tater]

If you go far enough back there is a big <40% beef baja chalupa waiting for you.

Are you saying that Taco Bell's first employee was God? Does he still work there?

[Skins24]

Is the speed of Dark faster than the Speed of light? And if so would does that mean for the faster than light travel theory applied to worm holes?

Dark is simply what we describe the absence of light (photons). Physically, it doesn't exist so it cannot be measured.

[haithman]

I'll just throw this out there...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

[nuposse87]

If time travel were possible how would it be achieved? I Imagine finding a point in the universe where the earth was at that time, and travelling extremely fast enough to land on the earth in that location at that time, though by the time we found the light that matches that time and destination, wouldn't it already be too late?

---------- Post added January-27th-2011 at 04:04 PM ----------

Well, I assume we could find the light that was given off at the beginning of time, but by the time that reached us (if the universe is still expanding), the beginning of time would be farther away, and therefore we would never find it.

Well, I'm no expert but from what I remember, It would take a worm hole to travel backwards in time, but changing said events in that time frame would effect that universe, not out own. If we had a ship that could travel 99% of C than by simply flying around in it for like a week, and then returning to earth we should have traveled in the future.

to the thing zoony said, If something is emitting light, regardless of its direction, it will travel the same unless its altered by a gravitational well (black hole, neutron star). Im assuming you guys refer to the beginning of time to the big bang, I'm not sure if thats a viewable phenomenon. I got this excerpt off another forum :

"At earlier times in the history of the universe, the matter was much denser and more ionized, so light couldn't travel very far through it before getting absorbed/scattered. It wasn't until about 300,000 years after the Big Bang that light could travel long distances without interacting with matter. Thus, virtually all of the light that we see was emitted after the universe was ~300,000 years old. The rest has long since been absorbed/scattered."

so I guess it would be impossible to see the beginning of time since existence wasn't exactly working as we understand it today... :/ ??

[Spec138]

Well, I assume we could find the light that was given off at the beginning of time, but by the time that reached us (if the universe is still expanding), the beginning of time would be farther away, and therefore we would never find it.

Light will still reach us, but it will be redshifted by the expansion of the universe. Basically a red shift is the same as the Doppler effect (for instance, why an ambulance's sirens sound higher as it approaches and lower as it passes you because the sound wavelength is being contracted and stretched respectively) except in terms of light wavelength. Objects traveling farther away will appear "redder" than they should and objects approaching us will be "bluer" (Andromeda exhibits this since it is travelling at us and will impact with our Milky Way in the next some tens of millions of years). The Cosmic Microwave Background (The initial flash of the big bang that has been redshifted into the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum due to space expanding) is the remnant of the Big Bang and I believe we can see back to about 300,000 years or so after the Big Bang.

Fun fact: About 1% of the white noise on old rabbit ear TV sets is due to the CMB.

[Reic]

Spec, how is Andromeda moving towards us? Is it due to different speeds of expansion?

[Spec138]

Spec, how is Andromeda moving towards us? Is it due to different speeds of expansion?

Andromeda is one of our nearest neighbors and part of our Local Group which is a gravitationally-bound system of galaxies, and yes even these giant things orbit each other (which I find fascinating). We're basically just on intersecting orbits.

[Springfield]

This thread is totally interesting to me. Not only because of the OP's content (which is mind numbing on it's own) but because of the conversation that it has sparked. This is one of the reasons why I love and truly respect the Tailgate. The amount of information and content that each and every poster here offers is also mind numbing.

Now as for what I have to offer to the conversation...

Somebody earlier was talking about the amount of time it would take to get from here to alien galaxies and how aliens wouldn't see human life is a good point. Also though, when we look for alien life we seem to come up empty as well. Most of the planets that we find are "gas giants" and only few are thought to even be close enough to the right category to support life. It's certainly possible that we are just looking at "images" of those planets that are too old to really tell us what is currently going on with them. It's also possible that our current optical capacity can't really give us details that will help us find truly alien life forms.

I have a lot of thought on the subject and I could probably ramble on but it would likely seem to be nothing more than a long string of thoughts. I'll stop there.

Also, Spec... your sig is way cool.

[No Excuses]

Somebody earlier was talking about the amount of time it would take to get from here to alien galaxies and how aliens wouldn't see human life is a good point. Also though, when we look for alien life we seem to come up empty as well. Most of the planets that we find are "gas giants" and only few are thought to even be close enough to the right category to support life. It's certainly possible that we are just looking at "images" of those planets that are too old to really tell us what is currently going on with them. It's also possible that our current optical capacity can't really give us details that will help us find truly alien life forms..

We can figure out extrasolar planet sizes by many different ways but the most common one is used by identifying the planets transit pattern in relation to the light dimming from the star it's orbiting.

But the planets size and its classification is usually done by measuring it's distance to the star it's orbiting. By knowing the composition of the star, scientists can usually determine the type of planets that are orbiting it. I don't think light and time play a role in this determination.

[KDawg]

While informative and cool, this thread hurts my head...

Does anybody know of any studies that study what's beyond space itself? Life is such a weird freakin' thing...

[Renegade7]

If it was a galaxy of blue giants 13 billion years ago, can only imagine what it is now...

Galaxy of blackholes? Could gravity bring them all together into one super massive blackhole, or is there even a theory yet for if they come together? Wow.

And seriously, this does beg the question: Is seeing the beginning of the universe next or even? Or are we eventually going to see something that we just aren't ready to try and understand?

[Mooka]

And seriously, this does beg the question: Is seeing the beginning of the universe next or even?

Nah, light traveled differently at those times due to the density and radiation. There's a "wall" that we'll never be able to see through.

Or are we eventually going to see something that we just aren't ready to try and understand?

I don't think we understand a damn thing.

[NavyDave]

Dark is simply what we describe the absence of light (photons). Physically, it doesn't exist so it cannot be measured.

I was under the impression that Darkness is the absence of light, therefore the speed of darkness is the speed it arrives, therefore the same as the speed of the departure of light. The speed of darkness = the speed of light

[grhqofb5]

Dark is simply what we describe the absence of light (photons). Physically, it doesn't exist so it cannot be measured.

Nor does light. It is only theoretical. By the way 13.2 billion lights years really isn't all that much.

[DjTj]

This is where the speed of light as a constant (relativity) breaks down for me. Seems like if something is travelling away from us, light should take longer to reach us. Doesn't make any sense that we could out across a long enough distance to see the beginning of time.

And it probably never will. (make sense, that is)

Other galaxies (including the one in the OP) are definitely moving away from us faster than the speed of light. This does not violate special relativity because they're not really moving faster than light in relation to space. What is happening is that space itself is expanding between us and distant galaxies. Think of it like being two ants on the surface of a balloon that is being inflated. Even if the ants are trying to crawl towards each other, it could take a really long time to reach each other because the space that they are standing on (the balloon) is expanding.

And if the ants have a maximum speed (like the speed of light), it's possible that two ants walking towards each other would never meet because the balloon is expanding too fast. That is the case with our universe, and there are objects that we will never be able to see because the space between us is expanding too quickly for light to make it.

[Spec138]

Nor does light. It is only theoretical. By the way 13.2 billion lights years really isn't all that much.

No light is real lol. It's called the electromagnetic spectrum.

13.2 billion lightyears is 500 million lightyears from as far as we can possibly see.