I've been watching Cosmos quite a bit and one of the things that puzzles me is about the Big Bang. How do we know for sure that the Big Bang wasn't just another star explosion and that beyond what we can currently see there isn't even more stars and galaxies? I understand how mathematically there are theories that matches current thinking to empirical evidence, however given that we cannot see further into the universe how can we be so sure?



Found this link about the maths and theory bits. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 246AAXzK6X

I've been watching Cosmos quite a bit and one of the things that puzzles me is about the Big Bang. How do we know for sure that the Big Bang wasn't just another star explosion and that beyond what we can currently see there isn't even more stars and galaxies? I understand how mathematically there are theories that matches current thinking to empirical evidence, however given that we cannot see further into the universe how can we be so sure?



Found this link about the maths and theory bits. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 246AAXzK6X

After what we mentioned a few weeks ago.



Is the Big Bang theory a mistake?



iai.tv/video/bang-goes-the-big-bang

After what we mentioned a few weeks ago.



Is the Big Bang theory a mistake?



iai.tv/video/bang-goes-the-big-bang

I wouldn't call it a mistake, as first it fits most observed and observable evidence, and second is just that, a theory, albeit a scientific and rigorously explored, addressed and investigated theory.



Also because the phrase "Big Bang" is just a simplistic analogy based on what happens in normal explosions with which we are all familiar, but unfortunately the true "appearance" of a theoretical Big Bang isn't something our brains are capable of visualising; in any explosion, there is an outisde space, and something within it explodes, and the bits fly out. But in this case, the whole point is that ther WAS no "outside". The expanding Universe is all there is. Certainly from our perspective.



After a while, thinking this over does your head in: if the Universe is infinite, how can it be "expanding"? If it all appeared out of nothing, where does all the something come from? And of course wtf is 95% of it, anyway?



It's just as it should be that many clever people challenge and investigate BB theory, but the thing is that I don't have any perception of any clique or class of scientists who would stubbornly cling to the existing BB theory despite any evidence or alternative theories to any contrary explanation, on this one, I think they all just want to know and it is not a "closed minds" scenario.



We don't know much, but what we do know has such weird and magical elements all over the place that nothing would surprise me. For example, do black holes exist? Maybe not, not in the way we popularly know them, anyway. We are all familiar with the "event horizon", notionally a boundary which if you cross, nothing can escape, as the black hole's gravity is too strong. But this turns out to be a fallacy, it turns out that you could fly your spaceship beyond the event horizon, then turn round and emerge safely - as long as you had enough petrol! It's objects travelling through space which don't have a propellant - even light - that can't escape beyond a certain point, but they could if they had engines to assist them.



And it's a fuzzy boundary too, all scientists are familiar with matter and anti-matter pairs (these pop into existence from an apparent nowhere all the time, then annihilate each other (cancel each other out) and so disappear again. (Where do they come from, and how TF does [ithat[/i work? But it's a strange bit of factual knowledge that we have learned and is now trite. Did you now, for example that in hospitals, radioactive molecules that emit anti-matter particles are used for imaging in a technique known as positron emission tomography?).



Then you have entangled particle pairs, which "know" what is happening to each other even at great distance. That is, nothing can travel faster than light. But however far you separate entangled pairs, an action on one is simultaneously mirrored in the other. That is, there is no communication lag. At all. It happens at the same time.



But if you have an entangled pair pop into creation near a black hole at the margins, what if one particle can escape the black hole but the other is drawn in? We should therefore be able to detect these "orphan" particles being "emitted" from the area around the black hole!



And we don't even know the full collection of atomic particles. Why, two more were [url=http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26345-two-new-strange-and-charming-particles-appear-at-lhc.html#.VDZ13NLjY8kdiscovered only yesterday![/url



An intriguing article:

news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... astronomy/



Speaking of particles, of course a microscope can only see to a certain small size limit, after which optics obviously fail. Right? Nope. Betzig, Moerner and Hell have won this year's Nobel prize in chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which for the first time allows us to actually watch nanoscale things like watching individual memories forming in brain cells. Stuff like this apart from being gobsmackingly brilliant, teachs me never to say never!



Nuclear envelope of a cell breaking open for cell division

I wouldn't call it a mistake, as first it fits most observed and observable evidence, and second is just that, a theory, albeit a scientific and rigorously explored, addressed and investigated theory.



Also because the phrase "Big Bang" is just a simplistic analogy based on what happens in normal explosions with which we are all familiar, but unfortunately the true "appearance" of a theoretical Big Bang isn't something our brains are capable of visualising; in any explosion, there is an outisde space, and something within it explodes, and the bits fly out. But in this case, the whole point is that ther WAS no "outside". The expanding Universe is all there is. Certainly from our perspective.



After a while, thinking this over does your head in: if the Universe is infinite, how can it be "expanding"? If it all appeared out of nothing, where does all the something come from? And of course wtf is 95% of it, anyway?



It's just as it should be that many clever people challenge and investigate BB theory, but the thing is that I don't have any perception of any clique or class of scientists who would stubbornly cling to the existing BB theory despite any evidence or alternative theories to any contrary explanation, on this one, I think they all just want to know and it is not a "closed minds" scenario.



We don't know much, but what we do know has such weird and magical elements all over the place that nothing would surprise me. For example, do black holes exist? Maybe not, not in the way we popularly know them, anyway. We are all familiar with the "event horizon", notionally a boundary which if you cross, nothing can escape, as the black hole's gravity is too strong. But this turns out to be a fallacy, it turns out that you could fly your spaceship beyond the event horizon, then turn round and emerge safely - as long as you had enough petrol! It's objects travelling through space which don't have a propellant - even light - that can't escape beyond a certain point, but they could if they had engines to assist them.



And it's a fuzzy boundary too, all scientists are familiar with matter and anti-matter pairs (these pop into existence from an apparent nowhere all the time, then annihilate each other (cancel each other out) and so disappear again. (Where do they come from, and how TF does [ithat[/i work? But it's a strange bit of factual knowledge that we have learned and is now trite. Did you now, for example that in hospitals, radioactive molecules that emit anti-matter particles are used for imaging in a technique known as positron emission tomography?).



Then you have entangled particle pairs, which "know" what is happening to each other even at great distance. That is, nothing can travel faster than light. But however far you separate entangled pairs, an action on one is simultaneously mirrored in the other. That is, there is no communication lag. At all. It happens at the same time.



But if you have an entangled pair pop into creation near a black hole at the margins, what if one particle can escape the black hole but the other is drawn in? We should therefore be able to detect these "orphan" particles being "emitted" from the area around the black hole!



And we don't even know the full collection of atomic particles. Why, two more were [url=http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26345-two-new-strange-and-charming-particles-appear-at-lhc.html#.VDZ13NLjY8kdiscovered only yesterday![/url



An intriguing article:

news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... astronomy/



Speaking of particles, of course a microscope can only see to a certain small size limit, after which optics obviously fail. Right? Nope. Betzig, Moerner and Hell have won this year's Nobel prize in chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which for the first time allows us to actually watch nanoscale things like watching individual memories forming in brain cells. Stuff like this apart from being gobsmackingly brilliant, teachs me never to say never!



Nuclear envelope of a cell breaking open for cell division

Was it with a Macro lens !!!!!

Was it with a Macro lens !!!!!

Apparently there’s a meteor shower peaking right now, that’s if anyone can see a bit of clear night sky in this Godforsaken country

.



www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/me ... ionid.html

Apparently there’s a meteor shower peaking right now, that’s if anyone can see a bit of clear night sky in this Godforsaken country

.



www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/me ... ionid.html

Rosetta live landing in the next hour - hopefully.



www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science- ... t-29985988

Rosetta live landing in the next hour - hopefully.



www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science- ... t-29985988

Great pics.

www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space ... 0_at_10_km

Great pics.

www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space ... 0_at_10_km