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I heard of Dark Matter....and later Dark Energy; BUT now we have Dark Flow and this is not the same phenomena as The Great Attractor. It is a VASTLY more gravitationally powerful anomaly than that.
Entire galactic clusters are moving towards this region of space; it appears absolutely huge and outside the visible threshold of our universe. It lies approximately 46.5 Billion light years distant. The furthest object we currently have ever seen is a Gamma-ray burst over 13 Billion light years away(current estimate of our universe's size is about 14 Billion light years).
I think this may/would help explain why gravity appears to be such a relatively weak force compared to the other three forces; maybe this is where the "missing" gravity lies or is being "pulled"(distorted) by another Universe within our Multiverse.
Any thoughts? Mind Boggling concept; which I was unaware of! Google: Dark Flow; the link will not work.
I've been aware of what's termed "Dark Flow", but I haven't really looked into the subject very much. Glad you brought it up because it is quite a mystery. It could be anything, including another universe, maybe larger than our own, that's colliding into ours or very close to it. We might be part of a Multiverse. I suppose it could be an explanation for gravity as a weak force, but there are also other explanations that may account for gravity's weakness.
On the other hand, I'm kind of wondering if the phenomena is just an unknown anomoly within our own universe. The real point is that we don't know all there is to know about the universe. There are lots of discoveries to be made that we haven't imagined yet.
Here are some links about it and a couple about "Bubble Universes".
Great post. Of course it's possible this could be coming from another universe or be some other entity outside ours, but isn't the simplest explanation that it is within our own universe? The limit of what we can see is 13-14 Billion light years out but it's quite possible that it extends much further either because space out there is accelerating faster than the speed of light-why we'd never actually see it-or that light just hasn't arrived yet because the universe is proportionally larger than it is old.
This is interesting to think about. What if this is the center of the universe or multiverse? Perhaps the dark energy/increasing expansion is only a local event and contained in our part of the universe. This "center" could have the mass required to negate dark energy or perhaps dark energy is weaker there...
Of course that brings up a whole new can of worms but could also explain why scientists have found gravity (at least in our part of the universe) too weak.
I've been aware of what's termed "Dark Flow", but I haven't really looked into the subject very much. Glad you brought it up because it is quite a mystery. It could be anything, including another universe, maybe larger than our own, that's colliding into ours or very close to it. We might be part of a Multiverse. I suppose it could be an explanation for gravity as a weak force, but there are also other explanations that may account for gravity's weakness.
On the other hand, I'm kind of wondering if the phenomena is just an unknown anomoly within our own universe. The real point is that we don't know all there is to know about the universe. There are lots of discoveries to be made that we haven't imagined yet.
Here are some links about it and a couple about "Bubble Universes".
Thanx for adding the links...I tried Wikipedia...but it would not work. I heard of The Great Attractor as mentioned; but this phenomena was new to me.....I'm wondering how they calculated it's distance at 45 Billion light years+?????? Can a red shift from that distance be directly observed????? Or was it a mathematical calculation???.
Great post. Of course it's possible this could be coming from another universe or be some other entity outside ours, but isn't the simplest explanation that it is within our own universe? The limit of what we can see is 13-14 Billion light years out but it's quite possible that it extends much further either because space out there is accelerating faster than the speed of light-why we'd never actually see it-or that light just hasn't arrived yet because the universe is proportionally larger than it is old.
This is interesting to think about. What if this is the center of the universe or multiverse? Perhaps the dark energy/increasing expansion is only a local event and contained in our part of the universe. This "center" could have the mass required to negate dark energy or perhaps dark energy is weaker there...
Of course that brings up a whole new can of worms but could also explain why scientists have found gravity (at least in our part of the universe) too weak.
Thanx; it does open things up some....especially as you also said......gives an explanation for gravity's relative weakness. I agree it could be part of the multi-verse but I think that it is outside the realm of our Brane or bubble universe and this is apparently vastly larger or denser than our universe...... . Also as NB was alluding to......maybe this is a larger/denser sibling universe. This may also explain some of the reason that the universe's expansion seems to be accelerating(dark energy). Possibly what we are perceiving as expansion really is simply the influence of this other universe within the multi-verse??? Makes my head spin but I love thinking of Cosmology as the "purest" science...next to all forms of Mathematics.
Last edited by PITTSTON2SARASOTA; 10-05-2009 at 08:43 AM..
Also, if we truly live in a multi-verse; then there is a high degree of probability that there were multiple Big Bangs. Each Big Bang formed a seperate universe with different physical laws.
Perhaps some universes have an extreme density or size. Or the force of gravity may totally dominate all other forces within that universe.This would partially explain Dark Flow
Or possibly there was a larger initial BIG BANG....which caused ripples of Branes and as they touched, this caused an infinite number of subsequent Bangs.
Perhaps this is a continual process of our multi-verse and we are being gravitionally pulled towards the older/larger initial universe within the multi-verse; If that makes any sense...LOL.
Thanx for adding the links...I tried Wikipedia...but it would not work. I heard of The Great Attractor as mentioned; but this phenomena was new to me.....I'm wondering how they calculated it's distance at 45 Billion light years+?????? Can a red shift from that distance be directly observed????? Or was it a mathematical calculation???.
Not sure why the Wiki link isn't working for you. I just tried it and it seems to work for me.
Decafedave pretty well pointed out the 13.5-14 billion year estimate of the age of the universe. It's not necessarily the actual age of the universe. It only means that the universe is at least that old. The more distant objects we can detect are, the farther back in time they are. The farthest we can see is about 380,0000 years after the Big Bang. There were no stars or galaxies in the early stages of the universe before that. It's possible the universe is much larger and much older than we know.
Another thought is that when the universe first began, the rate of expansion could well have been millions of times faster than the speed of light. That would put an unknown size to the actual limits of the universe far beyond the horizon of the observable universe.
As to what the source of Dark Flow may be, it's probably a remnant from the early universe, which might well be 45 billion light years away but still contained within the frame of the actual universe.
It might also be something beyond the actual universe, such as a different universe colliding with ours or a colliding brane. This could amount to a merging to become an even larger universe. But it has also been suggested that such a collision could generate the beginning of a brand new universe. Sounds pretty exciting, but there could be a downside to it. While a new Big Bang might be the start of a brand new universe, the energy resulting from such a massive collision could also mean the end of both our universe and the one colliding with us.
Not sure why the Wiki link isn't working for you. I just tried it and it seems to work for me.
Decafedave pretty well pointed out the 13.5-14 billion year estimate of the age of the universe. It's not necessarily the actual age of the universe. It only means that the universe is at least that old. The more distant objects we can detect are, the farther back in time they are. The farthest we can see is about 380,0000 years after the Big Bang. There were no stars or galaxies in the early stages of the universe before that. It's possible the universe is much larger and much older than we know.
Another thought is that when the universe first began, the rate of expansion could well have been millions of times faster than the speed of light. That would put an unknown size to the actual limits of the universe far beyond the horizon of the observable universe.
As to what the source of Dark Flow may be, it's probably a remnant from the early universe, which might well be 45 billion light years away but still contained within the frame of the actual universe.
It might also be something beyond the actual universe, such as a different universe colliding with ours or a colliding brane. This could amount to a merging to become an even larger universe. But it has also been suggested that such a collision could generate the beginning of a brand new universe. Sounds pretty exciting, but there could be a downside to it. While a new Big Bang might be the start of a brand new universe, the energy resulting from such a massive collision could also mean the end of both our universe and the one colliding with us.
I think the phenomena is outside our universe.....through particle physics we have extrapolated back in time to approximately 10 to the minus 43rd power of a second after the initial Big Bang, which created our universe.
I believe this was iniated by a brane collision. The resulting "Bang" would subsequently put some distance between the two or more branes. If this was a universe destroying encounter, we would not be here discussing the possible ramifications of brane collisions.
The branes are part of spacetime and probably one of the largest "structures" within the multi-verse; I do not believe they could be destroyed by merely touching....on the contrary, I think it is commonplace and has and will create an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possible outcomes.
This also implies that there very well could be a duplicate Earth or Earths. Now I need an aspirin for my new headache...in a parallel universe I did not say that...lol.... .
I think the phenomena is outside our universe.....through particle physics we have extrapolated back in time to approximately 10 to the minus 43rd power of a second after the initial Big Bang, which created our universe.
I believe this was iniated by a brane collision. The resulting "Bang" would subsequently put some distance between the two or more branes. If this was a universe destroying encounter, we would not be here discussing the possible ramifications of brane collisions.
The branes are part of spacetime and probably one of the largest "structures" within the multi-verse; I do not believe they could be destroyed by merely touching....on the contrary, I think it is commonplace and has and will create an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possible outcomes.
This also implies that there very well could be a duplicate Earth or Earths. Now I need an aspirin for my new headache...in a parallel universe I did not say that...lol.... .
I hate the term, "Big Bang", because it suggests the universe was caused by an explosion, rather than as an expansion.
I see what you're saying, that a collision between such multiverse structures might cause a Big Bang, but in effect the "Bang" of a newly formed universe would push such structures away from each other. Still, it wouldn't necessarily mean no damage to the two "parent" universes. It could be any damage to our own universe may be very slow, much in the same way our universe has been expanding over a long period of time. If that were the case, then yes, we'd still be here talking about it. It just hasn't reached us yet. It's just one explanation I've read about. I don't agree with it though.
It's also possible universes may blend together much like colliding galaxies can. After all, there are no physical edges to the universe.
In my opinion, if multiverses do exist outside of the universe, then it's reasonable to ask the question of what that "outside" is.
Brane cosmology models seem to suggest a Big Bang is an inflation due to movement of branes in string theory. Branes might only contact others as you suggest, but it might be they can merge together in various combinations. I don't see how branes could be part of space-time, although I can see that space-time could be a result of combined branes.
The idea that universes may occur due to chaotic inflation events in a random quantum-gravity "foam" as a result of conditions or combination of strings at the Planck scale, which seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Consequently, what may be "outside" of the universe would be the same as its origin, a quantum-gravity foam. In effect, a hyperspace.
In a multiverse scenario with an infinite number of universes, there's little doubt that parallel universes similar to ours would likely exist. The question is do universes form and exist as unique entities? Or do they exist within a multidimensional frame that are all related and propagate from each other? If they exist as separate entities contained within a hyperspace, then a parallel (twin) universe may be very distant from ours with many other kinds in between. If they are propagated by dimensions that are tightly wrapped or entwined around each other, then it would seem likely that the branches could be somewhat similar to ours, but also very different from ours by virtue of infinite outcomes. Some universes might be made of very different particles and physics. We still don't know enough about our own universe. In an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possible outcomes, some of those universes might have Howdy Doody puppets instead of stars.
The thing is that because the actual size of the universe is greater than the observable universe, the so-called Dark Flow might not necessarily be outside of the universe. It could very easily be a remnant anomoly, or a distortion, inside the universe. For example, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation clearly shows it isn't smooth and evenly distributed. There no reason to think the earliest stages of expansion was evenly distributed. The point being that there could be something from the earliest stages of expansion that's beyond observation which could likely account for what has been detected and termed Dark Flow. That's not to say it is in the universe, but I think it would be the first likely thing to consider.
I hate the term, "Big Bang", because it suggests the universe was caused by an explosion, rather than as an expansion.
I see what you're saying, that a collision between such multiverse structures might cause a Big Bang, but in effect the "Bang" of a newly formed universe would push such structures away from each other. Still, it wouldn't necessarily mean no damage to the two "parent" universes. It could be any damage to our own universe may be very slow, much in the same way our universe has been expanding over a long period of time. If that were the case, then yes, we'd still be here talking about it. It just hasn't reached us yet. It's just one explanation I've read about. I don't agree with it though.
It's also possible universes may blend together much like colliding galaxies can. After all, there are no physical edges to the universe.
In my opinion, if multiverses do exist outside of the universe, then it's reasonable to ask the question of what that "outside" is.
Brane cosmology models seem to suggest a Big Bang is an inflation due to movement of branes in string theory. Branes might only contact others as you suggest, but it might be they can merge together in various combinations. I don't see how branes could be part of space-time, although I can see that space-time could be a result of combined branes.
The idea that universes may occur due to chaotic inflation events in a random quantum-gravity "foam" as a result of conditions or combination of strings at the Planck scale, which seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Consequently, what may be "outside" of the universe would be the same as its origin, a quantum-gravity foam. In effect, a hyperspace.
In a multiverse scenario with an infinite number of universes, there's little doubt that parallel universes similar to ours would likely exist. The question is do universes form and exist as unique entities? Or do they exist within a multidimensional frame that are all related and propagate from each other? If they exist as separate entities contained within a hyperspace, then a parallel (twin) universe may be very distant from ours with many other kinds in between. If they are propagated by dimensions that are tightly wrapped or entwined around each other, then it would seem likely that the branches could be somewhat similar to ours, but also very different from ours by virtue of infinite outcomes. Some universes might be made of very different particles and physics. We still don't know enough about our own universe. In an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possible outcomes, some of those universes might have Howdy Doody puppets instead of stars.
The thing is that because the actual size of the universe is greater than the observable universe, the so-called Dark Flow might not necessarily be outside of the universe. It could very easily be a remnant anomoly, or a distortion, inside the universe. For example, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation clearly shows it isn't smooth and evenly distributed. There no reason to think the earliest stages of expansion was evenly distributed. The point being that there could be something from the earliest stages of expansion that's beyond observation which could likely account for what has been detected and termed Dark Flow. That's not to say it is in the universe, but I think it would be the first likely thing to consider.
I actually understand your post....we really don't know but I'm willing to bet that between our posts that we are on the right track.
My concern was with particle accelerators "confirming" some events so close to the initial "expansion" that I cannot understand how Dark Flow can be within our universe...but if our universe is part of a multi-verse than I see and agree with you...we just think a little bit differently.
I think the phenomena dark energy...may be inflation episode, but we are perceiving it as an acceleration of spacetime. Like you said about the COBE map showing slight variations which could explain the current framework of our universe...such as galactic super clusters.
The bubble or foam structure you refer to is just another way to visualize branes and is easier to see "in your mind's eye; so when I say branes I really don't mean that they are flat...but as you envision....."soap bubbles".
I still do not understand where Cosmologists got the 45+Billion year light distance? It can't be from red shifts or an indicator star like we use Cephid Variables for reference currently? Do you know how they arrived at that number? I cannot find any information on the number? Thanx.
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Google: Dark Flow; the link will not work.
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