Ir might seem that we can see out to the "end" of the universe with our largest telescopes. But we can't. It's important to remember that because light has a finite speed (186,000 miles per second), as we peer out into space we are actually looking back in time. Even when we look at the surface of the sun, we see it as it was eight minutes ago, because it takes eight minutes for its light to reach us. As we look at nearby galaxies we see them as they were millions of years ago -- not as they are today. Because of this, and the fact that the universe (according to the Biog Bang hteory) has a finite age, we only see out to a distance of 42 billion light years. There is, in fact, no way we can see beyond this distance. Does this mean there is "nothing" beyond this distance? No, it doesn't. It's quite likely that there is more universe -- more galaxies, more stars, more planets, and more aliens beyond it. But they are in another universe as far as we are concerned.
How many of these "other universes" exist? There may well be an infinite number; astronomers still do not know.
Barry Parker, Ph. D., author of "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow"
No comments:
Post a Comment