Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Observable Universe

[demmiblue]

Explanation: How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe. In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background, a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale, with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System, nearby stars, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies, filaments of early matter, and the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but speculative reasoning that assert that even our universe is part of a greater multiverse where either different physical constants occur, different physical laws apply, higher dimensions operate, or slightly different-by-chance versions of our standard universe exist.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220316.html

[2naSalit]

1. Wow!

Is that a poster? If it is, I want one!

[demmiblue]

6. The artist has a shop on Redbubble:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/pablocbudassi/shop

[2naSalit]

8. Thanks!

[demmiblue]

9. De nada, enchilada!

[nocoincidences]

2. I set it as my desktop background.

Works beautifully with my icon setup on the far left of the screen!

[Stuart G]

3. K and R

[sanatanadharma]

4. Where am I standing as I observe this Universe?

I see an eye-ball.
We are the Universe exploring itself.
If you have ever tried exploring your mind, you know how tangled that web is woven.

[localroger]

5. The Earth, seen directly below the Sun among the solar system planets /nt

[sanatanadharma]

7. If am looking at the Earth, I am not standing on it

Where is the conscious-being-knowingness located?

[localroger]

10. From the standpoint of the pictured Universe

...you are actually standing in another universe, on the Earth. I believe Tom Tomorrow has a documentary subthread in his This Modern World about this Earth and that other Earth being slightly different.

[Earth-shine]

11. It looks like an inverted big bang.

The further out you go, the closer you get to the time of the beginning.

This picture makes it clear that the positions of galaxies evolved along gravitational spindles.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Awesome...thanks for the link! nt

[UTUSN]

13. Forgive me, shouldn't it be "solar system""?