Hubble Discovers Galaxy... That Shouldn't Exist

[DiscostewSM]

This galaxy is so large, so fully-formed, astronomers say it shouldn't exist at all.

Since when did we have a full understanding of the universe to make such an statement?

I dunno, I'd argue that you don't necessarily need a full understanding of anything to know when something shouldn't happen. But I suppose scientists could compare the growth of other galaxies around that time frame (or even more) and then compare results. If we've never seen a galaxy grow to such a complex/complete size in only x billion years then I would say it's a rather rare occurrence.

And yet it is possible that it is a rare occurrence only in our part of the universe while being extremely common everywhere else. It's all speculation from our current understanding. Science in itself is completely based on theories, and there is no truth or proof except for what we consider as such that just so happens to agree with the limited understanding that we have.

 

[ouch123]

Ugh. I hate it when reporters use sensationalistic phrases like this to stir up interest. The researchers said it was fascinating that the galaxy did exist, not that it shouldn't. I feel better knowing that.

 

[Gahars]

Ugh. I hate it when reporters use sensationalistic phrases like this to stir up interest. The researchers said it was fascinating that the galaxy did exist, not that it shouldn't. I feel better knowing that.

Well, according to our understanding of galaxy formation and development before this discovery, it shouldn't exist. It's a touch sensationalized, of course, but it's not all that inaccurate or misleading.

 

[DiscostewSM]

So, when are the Vulcans going to appear and tell us how wrong we are?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

And yet it is possible that it is a rare occurrence only in our part of the universe while being extremely common everywhere else. It's all speculation from our current understanding. Science in itself is completely based on theories, and there is no truth or proof except for what we consider as such that just so happens to agree with the limited understanding that we have.

I could probably write hundreds and hundreds of pages on how you've got a point and all (I fucking love space and shit like this) but I don't think that really applies well here (mainly because we can't just observe all of space and the billions of galaxies out there and then compare).

If we have a generally understanding of how space and galaxies work (by observing life cycles of various galaxies/theorizing about the formation and life of a galaxy) and we come across something so out of the norm to the point where certain scientists/astronomers believe something like it shouldn't exist at all, then I think we have something unique. As the article mentions, researches have a rather sneaking suspicion that the dwarf galaxy's gravitational influence could affect the growth rate of the larger galaxy and, as far as I know anyways, I don't think that's a rather common occurrence.

Though I do agree, it'd probably be more right to say "this shouldn't exist based on our understanding of galaxies and how they work" instead of just "it shouldn't exist".

 

[The Milkman]

Wait. So you're telling me some dudes in a lab looked at a picture of a galaxy, somehow predicted how old it was and said it shouldn't exist? Well, shit, they must be Jesus or somethin'.

 

[Vampire Lied]

So many new discoveries and advancements happening. It brings back the wonder of space exploration from when NASA was in its prime. Can't wait for solid, confirmed proof of extraterrestrial life. Will probably never happen cause of the damn government though. Wouldn't it be great to converse with someone from another planet or a whole other galaxy...or they might just fry us with ray guns or make our brains explode via telepathy.

 

[Frank Cadena]

If there are extraterrestrial life I'm going to be pretty worried because, looking back to our own history, whenever a more advanced civilisation comes in contact with a less advanced civilisation, said less advanced civilisation gets invaded. Stephen Hawking thinks so too. Also, first few lines of OP triggered an earworm. Now I can't get 'Electric Eye' out of my head. Thanks a lot OP.

 

[Fluto]

The galaxy that never was

 

[NightsOwl]

Damn space, you scary!

In reality, I think this is really neat. 10.6 billion years is a really long time ago. It's kinda neat knowing things have existed for that long.

 

[Defiance]

Damn space, you scary!

In reality, I think this is really neat. 10.6 billion years is a really long time ago. It's kinda neat knowing things have existed for that long.

I completely agree, but it's even neater to think that things didn't exist before that time (even though time itself probably didn't exist so saying what I just said doesn't really make sense).

 

[ferofax]

This marklar is very cool. Us marklar should try and explore this marklar by building a new marklar. Too bad the marklar we have now can't make it to this marklar. Hell, we aren't even able to explore the marklar that are near our marklar.

Aladeen, what is "marklar"? Is it aladeen, or aladeen? Derka derka Bin Laden derkastani.

 

[shakirmoledina]

It's kinda like that torch in a dark room hypothesis.
If you are in a dark room, if you switch on the torch, the circle around the light will be small, if the light increases, the perimeter around it increases hence the darkness increases, the more you know, the more you know that you don't know.

 

[FAST6191]

It's kinda like that torch in a dark room hypothesis.
If you are in a dark room, if you switch on the torch, the circle around the light will be small, if the light increases, the perimeter around it increases hence the darkness increases, the more you know, the more you know that you don't know.

But the truth is much stranger
Darkness, as noted by some, is merely the absence of light* so that would need some kind of thing to negate or absorb light... which light itself can do- http://physics.about.com/od/lightoptics/a/doubleslit.htm
Beyond that however it would require the annihilation of energy which as far as we know is impossible.

Beyond that there are also concepts like negative pressure which can not exist either but proves quite useful when designing aircraft (see also Benoît Mandelbrot's work on fractal pressure).

*others still would note that space is not a perfect vacuum but a very potent one by virtue of the radio waves (aka light) within it and maybe the odd travelling particle.

Back to the topic at hand- it is always interesting when things like this crop up and it seems Astronomy is becoming one of the places you can see this more often than not when compared to other scientific fields.

 

[Deleted-236924]

This galaxy has un-ceased to be!

 

[shakirmoledina]

It's kinda like that torch in a dark room hypothesis.
If you are in a dark room, if you switch on the torch, the circle around the light will be small, if the light increases, the perimeter around it increases hence the darkness increases, the more you know, the more you know that you don't know.

But the truth is much stranger
Darkness, as noted by some, is merely the absence of light* so that would need some kind of thing to negate or absorb light... which light itself can do- http://physics.about.../doubleslit.htm
Beyond that however it would require the annihilation of energy which as far as we know is impossible.

Beyond that there are also concepts like negative pressure which can not exist either but proves quite useful when designing aircraft (see also Benoît Mandelbrot's work on fractal pressure).

*others still would note that space is not a perfect vacuum but a very potent one by virtue of the radio waves (aka light) within it and maybe the odd travelling particle.

Back to the topic at hand- it is always interesting when things like this crop up and it seems Astronomy is becoming one of the places you can see this more often than not when compared to other scientific fields.

I am not sure why you quoted me actually, fast.
What I meant was, the more we know the more we know that we don't know.

But you're "fast" so I don't to debate with you. security issues my... foot

 

[Shoat]

This is pretty cool. Take that scientists, we still know jack shit about the universe

Isn't that what scientists themselves say very often?

If there are extraterrestrial life I'm going to be pretty worried because, looking back to our own history, whenever a more advanced civilisation comes in contact with a less advanced civilisation, said less advanced civilisation gets invaded. Stephen Hawking thinks so too. Also, first few lines of OP triggered an earworm. Now I can't get 'Electric Eye' out of my head. Thanks a lot OP.

My understanding of physics indicates that distances between galaxies are so vast that travel between them, and especially invasion and warfare across them, is practically impossible.

First, they'd need to not go extinct for long enough to aquire the technology and knowledge required for long range space travel, then they'd have to fly in a spaceship for millions of years (even if you could move that ship at the speed of light it'd still be hundreds of thousands of years, galaxies are FAR away from each other), have your species survive on that ship and have the ship not hit anything (meaning you need to calculate in every obstacle on the way out of your galaxy, then the perfect path to the other galaxy, keeping in mind that galaxies move as well, and then calculate in every obstacle on the way through the target galaxy to the target solar system) and then hope that the other species you wanted to travel to STILL EXISTS. And if they then arrive on earth, kill all humans and take it, then what? They have a planet drained of most of it's resources, polluted up the wazoo and there's crappy old low-tech cities taking up large amounts of land. Considering what it took them to get there, there is no way they can just pack up all it's resources and go home with it.

If you expect the bad bad invaders to have cracked wormholes or some other far-away stuff that'd allow the traversing of ridiculous distances, they'd have to not go extinct for even longer, and as evidence from earth suggests, sentient species are complete and utter idiots in terms of not killing each other / themselves. So any species that has completely united (which is required for a sentient species to not extinct itself) and then survived long enough to achieve such incredible near-science-fiction technological advancements needs to have developed high moral standards and become peaceful, making them unlikely to just attack a lesser species out of lower motives. And with the technology to actually go places, they'd not go for a polluted planet drained of most of it's resources and inhabited by primitive war-like species armed with nuclear weapons in order to get resources, they'd find enough empty undefended ones to harvest or colonize.

War is primitive. No species sufficiently advanced to quickly travel the universe wages war. Because any technology that'd allow you to wage intergalactic war would also allow you to aquire whatever it is that you'd want to get through war without wasting any resources and risking any lives on war.

So, bottom line is, either they don't exist long enough to get anywhere, or we don't exist long enough to see them arrive, or they are so advanced that they don't have any reasons to come here.




Holy crap, did I just write all of that?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

This marklar is very cool. Us marklar should try and explore this marklar by building a new marklar. Too bad the marklar we have now can't make it to this marklar. Hell, we aren't even able to explore the marklar that are near our marklar.

Aladeen, what is "marklar"? Is it aladeen, or aladeen? Derka derka Bin Laden derkastani.

This marklar has no idea what the marklar you marklar are talking about. Learn to speak marklar.

 

[Frank Cadena]

@[member='Shoat']:: You have a point at what you're saying but ... Let me address some of your arguments. First, you're making that assumption that they progressed technologically and scientifically at the same rate as we are but what if they didn't? What if they've progressed much faster than we? It's would then be feasible that they created technologies that far surpasses our understanding of Physics and space and can create space faring ships that can travel ridiculous distances in a short amount of time.

On the issue of not going extinct for that long, what if their society achieved unification through superior military might? Being the one species that are aggressive but instead of focusing their war faring tendencies on themselves, they focus it on others that are not 'them'. 'If not one of us then they shall be terminated' kind of deal.

And why would they want our planet? Many reasons, a place to live that has a breathable atmosphere to start. Being so advance as to be able to traverse great distances, they certainly would have technologies to deal with the pollution that we primitive races has introduce to the atmosphere. And with material reclamation technology, literally taking apart everything that we built and then recycling them for material since no one's going to use them, that would solve some of the resource problem.

Now, everything above is in the realm of science fiction because i read and watch probably too much sci-fi but it's technically possible even if the chance of it happening is virtually zero Too bad everything above that I typed was cobbled together from various premises of sci-fi books and movies that I have or that would be one great book/movie.

 

[tatripp]

This means absolutely nothing to me. Space is cool n all, but I basically knew nothing about it before and I still don't know anything about it. I don't care if we find galaxies in the shape of a spiral, a muffin, or even a triangle. It all means nothing to me. This discovery is completely insignificant. Space is still just a bunch of random crap floating around. Now I may be interested if they found aliens.