Quote:
Originally Posted by rcheshire
Reading Einsteins theory of relativity recently, I am led to believe that time causes space to curve. Is the expanding universe a function of time since its inception? Just a wild thought. There are a lot of complex ideas wrapped up in that question, and I wont begin to elaborate. If everything is rushing away from everything else, will there come a time when nothing will be visible from any other point in the universe. That is, everything will red shift out of view of everything else  |
Rowland,
The current theories have expanding space carrying the contents of the universe with it. At some distance space is moving away from us (and every other place since there is no preferred frame of reference) faster than the speed of light, and everything red shifts out of sight as it gets dragged along. That distance seems to be something of the order of 14-15 billion Light Years.
All that will be left are those objects where the gravitational attraction is strong enough to beat expansion and to keep them together. For us that probably means the
Local Group. There won't be many DSOs left to image, but that it won't happen in our lifetimes, unless you expect to live a few billion years.
