http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0bKE10ZDM—a virtual universe.

It is this project: http://www.illustris-project.org/.

Very interesting, and mesmerising too. Loved it :) Thanks Umpteenth Snark :)

Just found this and think it sort of fits into this thread...

A turbulent birth for stars in merging galaxies

Using state of the art computer simulations, a team of French astrophysicists have for the first time explained a long standing mystery: why surges of star formation (so called ‘starbursts’) take place when galaxies collide.

A turbulent birth for stars in merging galaxies

Centuries ago, the invention of optical telescope brought new perspectives. Now, enormous computing resources seem to be the latest equivalent of telescope, don't they.

No naked eye anymore...

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

For a long time I wanted to buy or build a good telescope. But since the advent of PC's and the internet that desire has diminished as I can view a lot more on my computer than I could ever hope to on a small telescope. Not to mention finding a dak enough place to set one up and the time it takes to do so.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

That's the 'virtualization' in society for you:( When I look at the stars I do it with my reflector or binoculars.

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

Living in London it's never dark enough to capture even a fraction of the delight I used to get looking up at the stars when I was in the southern hemisphere then. Only proper look I've had at the northern stars since crossing the Equator was on a holiday to the Greek Islands and from the Yorkshire moors.

Did buy my son a telescope :) but unfortunately we had a bit of a dim cat at the time... and there was an accident... and the cat was fine.

In the absence of the technology (or the physical laws) we'd require to get real images of space anything like the virtually generated ones, I'll just have to make do I suppose... :) but goodness me they do need enormous computing resources! :)

I do to Julie, the only thing is my tripod is so heavy. the telescope isn't too bad but the binoculars are 20 pounds has to have one too or use the top of the car to hold then for any time. 25 X 100 power

---

Cheers everybody
Life is short so don't sip
Beer speaks, people mumble

Ok..just going to pop this here...

What's the biggest known structure in the universe?

Astronomers used to think it was a "filament" of galaxies known as the Sloan Great Wall. But recent research suggests a different structure is even bigger -- and its size has astronomers scratching their heads.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/biggest-thing-in-universe-video_n_5365111.html
The Biggest Thing In The Universe Is So Gigantic It Shouldn't Exist At All (VIDEO)

Meet the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall (Her-CrB GW). Check it out in the video above.

---

Sometimes one has to look at these astronomic "discoveries" with a lot of skepticism especially after last week's "meteor storm".

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Well they even said they had no idea how big or small it was going to be but it got all hyped up as a great show but ended in a fizzle. I know I was out there and I seen only one.

---

Cheers everybody
Life is short so don't sip
Beer speaks, people mumble

Ok..just going to pop this here...

What's the biggest known structure in the universe?

Astronomers used to think it was a "filament" of galaxies known as the Sloan Great Wall. But recent research suggests a different structure is even bigger -- and its size has astronomers scratching their heads.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/biggest-thing-in-universe-video_n_5365111.html
The Biggest Thing In The Universe Is So Gigantic It Shouldn't Exist At All (VIDEO)

Meet the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall (Her-CrB GW). Check it out in the video above.

Does this "Great Wall" have to do with the "dark flow" or "great attractor" phenomena? Every once in a while i see an article about this mysterious thing pulling large chunks of the universe (or galactic clusters) toward it but then i don't hear anything about the subject for a long time. I've read some articles that posit that it may be the pull of another universe. Anyone got any new info on this subject?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23340-blow-for-dark-flow-in-plancks-new-view-of-the-cosmos.html#.U4a5mfldUYM

This was the last i heard about the subject but it seems that not all the scientist were ready to believe that their observations of this phenomena were wrong for so long.

OK, someone asked me, since we can see back as far as 500 million years after the big bang, why can't we see our own solar system back just 4.5 billion years ago. My answer was that the light from back then has already passed this point in space as we are only moving at a small fraction of the speed of light. Is that essentially correct?

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

OK, someone asked me, since we can see back as far as 500 million years after the big bang, why can't we see our own solar system back just 4.5 billion years ago...

1: It wasn't here/there that far back in time;

2: Our solar system is here with us and we haven't been away from it to see it anywhere else from/for any time!


(We see back in time due to the time it takes light to travel that distance in that time... ;-) )


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

OK, someone asked me, since we can see back as far as 500 million years after the big bang, why can't we see our own solar system back just 4.5 billion years ago. My answer was that the light from back then has already passed this point in space as we are only moving at a small fraction of the speed of light. Is that essentially correct?

I would think that is a good answer. We're seeing the sun as it was like 7 or 8 minutes ago but the image from 9 minutes ago is past us and zooming away at light speed. So the slice of time that is the image of or our solar system 4.5b years ago is 4.5b lys away now and hence, unobservable to us.

You could also think of it this way. There is a sphere around our solar system right now with a radius of 4.5 billion lys. The beings (if they exist) on that sphere are seeing our solar system as it was 4.5 billion yeas ago. So we on earth can't see back that far but "we" as hypothetical entities 4.5b lys from here are seeing this solar system as it was then.

There is a sphere around our solar system right now with a radius of 4.5 billion lys.

I keep trying to get away and they keep pulling me back in. The "radius" of the Universe is 46.5 billion light years though, 10 times bigger than it should be. IMHO anyone who thinks they understand all of this just don't understand. I assume.

---

There is a sphere around our solar system right now with a radius of 4.5 billion lys.

I keep trying to get away and they keep pulling me back in. The "radius" of the Universe is 46.5 billion light years though, 10 times bigger than it should be. IMHO anyone who thinks they understand all of this just don't understand. I assume.

The 4.5b ly radius sphere i'm referring to is the sphere composed of every point in 3d space that is seeing our solar system as it was 4.5b years ago. I made no mention of the the radius of the universe, but that has been explained ad nauseam. If you weren't satisfied with the explanations in the forums there's plenty of books, articles, youtube videos, etc. that explain how we calculate the size of the universe.