How accurate is our knowledge of the universe?
Astronomers have measured the distances between galaxies in the universe to an accuracy of just 1\%. “There are not many things in our daily lives that we know to 1\% accuracy,” said Prof David Schlegel, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the principal investigator of BOSS.
What do we really know about universe?
The universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. At the largest scale, galaxies are distributed uniformly and the same in all directions, meaning that the universe has neither an edge nor a center.
How do we know about the future of the universe?
The future of the Universe will be determined by the struggle between the momentum of its expansion and the pull of gravity. The vertical scale indicates the size of the Universe. For the next several billion years, the expansion of the Universe gradually slowed down due to the effects of gravity on matter.
What percentage of space has been explored?
To date, scientists have explored about 4 percent of the visible universe. That’s made up of planets, stars and galaxies that astronomers can see. Yet, there’s a vast part – the other 96 percent – that scientists cannot see.
Do we really know everything about the universe?
Even though we don’t know everything, there are enormous sources of knowledge that have empowered us to draw far-reaching conclusions about our Universe. We know what it’s made up of in terms of matter, energy, radiation and so on.
How far away are the objects in the universe?
Perhaps the objects now could be as far as 27.6 billion light years away, assuming their light just reaches us now and they speed away from us at almost the speed of light. The different possible fates of the Universe, with our actual, accelerating fate shown at the right. (NASA & ESA) 3.)
How far back in time can we see the universe?
Therefore, the longer we wait, the farther we can see, as light travels in a straight line at the speed of light. So after 13.8 billion years, you’d expect to be able to see back almost 13.8 billion light years, subtracting only how long it took stars and galaxies to form after the Big Bang.
What would happen if the universe had no dark energy?
If the Universe had no dark energy in it at all, the farthest objects — stars, galaxies, the leftover glow from the Big Bang, etc. — would be limited to 41.4 billion light years. (The relativistic derivation of that figure, that R = 3ct, ought to be a familiar result to those who took General Relativity in graduate school.)