this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 55 points 3 days ago (38 children)

Good visualization but inaccurate. Space between galaxies in a cluster and even the stars in a galaxy is also growing. The difference is in scale. There's so much distance between galactic clusters and the largest structures of the universe that added up that expansion amount is so much bigger. The balloon analogy with galaxies as dots on the surface is closer since the dots also do grow some, but the balloon would have to be huge to capture a good scale comparison.

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 20 points 3 days ago (28 children)

Are you sure that galaxies are growing? They're gravitationally bound enough to have organized orbits, do those orbits get larger over time?

[–] gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone -4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

do those orbits get larger over time?

Yes, I think they do.

I think that expansion doesn't increase distance, but velocity between objects (or so was my interpretation back when I looked at the formulas). That means that moving objects speed up over time. As such, orbital velocities increase, too, and that lifts their orbit - similar to when a rocket on a closed orbit propulses forward.

But I might be wrong; I feel 70% certain about this one.

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But I might be wrong; I feel 70% certain about this one.

You should downgrade your certainty. By a lot.

The expansion is an expansion of space, and therefore explicitly increases the distance between galaxies. It does not, and cannot increase the speed at whoicj those galaxies travel through that space.

Right now, there are galaxies moving away from us at rates higher than the speed of light, a thing which is physically not possible if the expansion is due to an acceleration of the galaxies themselves.

You've misunderstood things completely backwards.

Educate. They said they weren’t sure, so no need to be so critical of their knowledge. You, and all of us reading this, would be better served with a good layman’s explanation rather than you reinforcing how wrong the parent comment was. Twice.

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