Ok so the universe is probably infinite, and there’s stars in every direction, and stars
are super bright.
so why isn’t it basically daylight all the time?
Hey there my bright spots, Julian here for DNews.
It’s an interesting question, “why is space black?”
Well fortunately, Fraser Cain, who is brilliant and follows me on twitter and I am not worthy,
recently discussed why we’re not wearing shades 24/7.
Cain explains that the question was first asked by German Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm
Olbers in 1823.
It’s known as Olber’s Paradox, and states that if the universe is infinite, static,
and timeless, then the night sky should be lousy with stars.
Obviously though our night sky is more connect the dots than pointillism.
Edwin Hubble solved the paradox in 1929.
He observed that everywhere he looked in the universe, the spectrums of all the stars were
slightly red, meaning the light coming from them was being stretched out, meaning the
space itself light was traveling through was expanding.
Ergo, the universe isn’t static and there must be stars that are so far away their light
just hasn’t had time to reach us yet.
So if we give it billions more years will we eventually be able to tan at midnight?
Don’t hold out too many hopes, because Hubble’s discovery of universal expansion also means
that the farther away something is, the faster the space between it and us is stretching
out.
After a huge enough distance, space will be stretching out faster than light can close
the gap.
There’s another facet to the paradox though.
Well, if the universe is all expanding away from everything else, it stands to reason
that if you go far back enough, it was all clumped together.
This is where the theory of the big bang comes in.
But if there was a bright instantaneous flash of existence that happened literally everywhere,
shouldn’t we be able to see that too?
Again, the riddle is solved by the expansion of space.
In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working on a totally unrelated experiment
with a radio telescope and they couldn’t shake this weird, unwanted static.
After making sure everything was functioning correctly, even cleaning the inside of the
antennae for bird droppings for hours, they realized that the signal was coming from everywhere,
and you can’t stop the signal.
They concluded that the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation must have been the light from the
big bang, but had been stretched out after billions of years until it was low-energy
microwaves that our eyes can’t see.
Boom, and the universe makes sense again.
If you want to hear more possible evidence of the big bang, trace and Dr. Ian O’Neill
talk about gravitational waves and how they play into that over here.
What are some other implications of expanding space?
I think it’s a great excuse to not visit relatives, because, oh no, you’re just getting
farther away, awww dang.
Let us know in the comments and I’ll see you next time on DNews.