Coooooooooooooooool!

Analyses of a new high-resolution map of microwave light emitted only 380,000 years after the Big Bang appear to define our universe more precisely than ever before. The eagerly awaited results announced last year from the orbiting Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe resolve several long-standing disagreements in cosmology rooted in less precise data. Specifically, present analyses of above WMAP all-sky image indicate that the universe is 13.7 billion years old (accurate to 1 percent), composed of 73 percent dark energy, 23 percent cold dark matter, and only 4 percent atoms, is currently expanding at the rate of 71 km/sec/Mpc (accurate to 5 percent), underwent episodes of rapid expansion called inflation, and will expand forever. Astronomers will likely research the foundations and implications of these results for years to come.

Copied and pasted from---> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

or go to---> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html and check out the Sept. 25, 2005 entry.

VERY cool.

and yes, i am sure they will be researching (and probably quibbling) for years to come.

Yes, but how big is this microwave?

i'm sure it's big enough to cook a jedi. maybe several jedi, at once!

more importantly, how big is this probe?

Big enough to check if their done.

This is lame, but I much preferred the option of the universe not expanding forever, but eventually falling back in on itself (the Big Crunch) to the newer theory of the universe just expanding outward forever, cooling, cooling as it burns away the hydrogen and lighter elements that power stars...and eventually...just going out. Forever.

Talk about existential angst! I know it makes nothing resembling ANY difference to any of us living, or even our species. But...it makes me sad.

Anybody else miss the old theory and wish that evidence still supported it, or should I just form my own support group here in the corner, me myself and me?

- Kai, all existential and stuff

There doesn't necessarily not have to be a Big Crunch, there will still be a lot of high mass stars swirling around. Who's to say that a few of them couldn't catch each other up, fusing themselves together and creating a gravitational chain reaction which eventually causes a Not-Quite-Big-But-Still-Very-Respectable-Sized Bang. (And I will call him Mini-Creation).

They've still got a lot of questions to answer, and some that I don't think ever will be, at least not by our little ape-minds. The universe is just so big(what in inadequate word!), who knows, we may learn something tomorrow that completely changes every theory that's come before. We've got to keep an open mind, because I don't think we've even scratched the surface of cosmology.




Besides, everyone knows the universe was really created when At'tar, the Space Chicken hatched it from one of her InterGalactic Eggses, and we're all heading, not for the Big Crunch, but actually the Big Scramble.

I prefer to think that the universe was created. When I say created, I don't mean by Jesus Christ, but John Christ, the ex guitarist for Danzig.

jer, i can cautiously say that i get the feeling you are pulling the collective leg.

Of course I don't believe that John Christ created the world. I was just joking about the fact that I'm pretty much(besides Liz)the only one who believes in creation. Although think of what the world would be like, had it been created by John Christ. <------Guitars and Goth for everyone!!!

just because i believe in creation doesn't mean i don't believe there was a big bang. i believe they are one and the same. Prime Mover yo.

If there WAS a big bang when the world was created, then I do believe that it was God on his Pearl Export series drum set, using his mighty DOUBLE BASS pedal.

my theory:

a low-end note from les claypool's bass, rippled by the doppler effect of going backwards through time...

Now THAT is a theory and a half. Les Claypool is pretty talented, so who's to say he isn't out there creating universes?

Uh-uh... Space Chicken.




Or maybe Hendrix.

Hendrix was too busy doing drugs or not knowing how to tune his guitar to do that.

>starring blankly then blinking several times very quickly<

I am going to stand a respectable distance away after that remark.

That's right! Because he was so busy creating everything. It's hard to focus on tuning one's guitar, or even playing it the right way round for that matter, when one is creating the universe. As for the drugs... erm... well, uh... yeah, it was the 60s! Everybody was doin' 'em! Or something...








Egg from the Space Hendrix?

< Egg from the Space Hendrix? >

i like it, it works.

Hmm.

Not to contradict my own post, but... if the Universe is constantly expanding away from one singular point, i.e. the Big Bang, how in the world can we have galaxies colliding with one another? Such as:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051008.html

and

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041121.html

and

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971027.html

And what with all that gravity being exerted by, well, everything... wouldn't it send stuff: comets; asteroids; galaxies, whizzing all over the place higgledy-piggledy, thus kinda nullifying the whole "expansion" thing and creating more of an "automatic pool table gone wild" sort of effect?

Sorry, but I think they need to do some more math. (And I will gladly back this up with my quite startling lack of research, expertise or even understanding)(Sho nuff!).

...actually, new evidence suggests it was the flying spaghetti monster:

http://www.venganza.org/index.htm

WWFSMD?