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The Standard Resolution
The standard resolution to this paradox invokes the finite age of the cosmos and the speed of light. Even if the cosmos is endless and full of stars, one might reason, we can only see the ones that are close enough for there to have been enough time (since the beginning of the Universe) for the light to reach us from there. Anything distant enough from the Earth that the light travel time is more than the age of the Universe is invisible to us.
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The Age Of The Ever-Expanding Universe
The stranger physics comes in when you ask, what are those things whose light has travelled for that long? The Big Bang theory says that the Universe 13.8 billion years ago was a hot, dense inferno, in which all of space was filled with glowing-hot plasma, rippling and churning like the surface o...
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We Are Not The Center Of The Universe
While we may never know if the Universe as a whole is infinite or bounded, we know that the cosmic microwave background – the distant shell of fading fire that surrounds us – is the most distant light...
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Another Paradox Resolved
The reason the Universe can be glowing all around us but still look dark comes down to the physics of light in an expanding universe. When space expands, and the distance between objects grows, the light passing between those things gets stretched out, shifting the light to lower frequencies on t...
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The Universe: Infinite Or With A Boundary
Whether it’s more troubling to imagine that the Universe goes on forever in every direction, or that it has an edge, beyond which there is nothing, is hard to say.
Astrophysics doesn’t provide any guidance as to which flavour of existential crisis we should be having – while we can’t say wi...
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Olbers’ Paradox
Olbers’ Paradox asks: if the Universe is infinite, and if there are stars (or galaxies) throughout it, why is the sky dark? Surely, if we look in any direction in the sky, that sightline will, eventually, land on a sta...
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There’s No Easy Answer To The Question Of Alien Life
- It’s estimated that 20 percent of all stars have Earth-like planets orbiting them in the Goldilocks Zone . ( a region capable of sustaining life because it’s not too distant from its star to be an icy wasteland, but not close enough to fry its inhabitants)
- There are ...
The ‘Hubble-Lemaître’ law
The 'Hubble-Lemaître' law is more useful for calculating distant galaxies. The law shows that the further the galaxy is from Earth, the faster it moves away from us - the consequence of the Universe expanding.
The galaxy's speed is measured by...
Where are Nebulae?
Nebulae exits in space between the stars—also known as interstellar space. The closest known nebula to earth is called the Helix Nebula.
- It is the remnant of a dying star—possibly one like the Sun. It is approximately 700
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