Cosmological Q&A

I've had a list of questions regarding this topic - more like a compilation of questionable ideas of which I would like to throw out there in hopes to find some answers on as well as open the door for others to do the same as I.There are a lot of aspects of physics which seemingly become paradoxical and/or counterintuitive, concepts which appear to have two (or more) correct but diametrically opposed explanations, and so on and so forth. I'd like to throw some of these out to start a sort of Q and A post. And so, I'll divulge >>>> The idea that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate is a conclusion based on observation of objects in the cosmos - we find that the further out we look, the faster the objects are moving away from us. While it seems scientists are infatuated with trying to explain why objects are moving like this, I haven't heard a lot of questions about the implications of this observation.Does this mean that at some point, waaaay out there, objects are actually moving away from us at the speed of light? If so, wouldn't this mean that these objects would virtually have infinite mass? And if this is so, would this mean that our universe is basically bordered by a black hole?Also, the further away you look, the further back in time you are seeing. Since this is the case and we see objects moving away from us at greater rates of speed the further away we look, wouldn't this mean that the universe isn't actually expanding? i.e. if you look out at 7 billion light year miles and see objects moving away at 500,000 miles per hour and then look out at 14 billion light year miles and see objects moving away at 1,000,000 miles per hour, wouldn't this mean that the expansion rate is actually slowing? 14 billion years ago things were moving 2x the rate they were moving 7 billion years ago. If you continue to divide the distance you look out, things are moving even slower away from us. Taking this one step further, does this mean everything you see out at 14 billion light year miles was actually right where we are at this moment? Would space then be the shape of an infinite number of toroids with an itty-bitty "hole" at the very center where we exist - our observations are as if we are looking along the surface of a loop of time and space? Not saying this in any sort of "centric" way - us being at the very center is just a condition of observing the universe.I am aware of the concept of "comoving distances", which basically states that what we observe out in the cosmos isn't actually as old as the light year miles would suggest. This is because when the whole thing went "boom", the light from distant objects was emitted across expanding space, which made it actually travel further distance to reach us. Because of this, the visible universe is 46 billion light years in any direction. This throws the 14 billion year metric I used above a bit off, so lets just entertain that previous paragraph as if you are looking out 46 billion light years. With this small correction, the question above still stands - wouldn't this mean you are actually looking right back to "here" and that the universe isn't really expanding at an accelerating rate?Going back to the idea that the universe is essentially "encased" by a black hole, and tying this into the looped universe, that would imply that the universe actually started out as a black hole. Perhaps we are in some iteration of the "other side" of a great crunch event which created a black hole containing ALL of the universe. This idea is something that makes it difficult to imagine the big bang - if you had all of the universe in some really tiny volume, wouldn't that be a black hole? How could it go BANG and expand? Or perhaps the "big crunch" isn't everything gravitating back to one point, it is everything hurtling into the bordering "black hole" - being spit back to the beginning and cycling all over again? Out there at the "edge" there could be someone watching US cross that point and "poof" we're on the other side of the loop.Also, a question on gravity... What would happen if you were to significantly slow or even stop the local time of the space of an object? i.e. time dialation.. Would gravity have a lesser to no effect on that object?Many more Q's but enough for now. Edited by Admin, : Change title from "Some Q's and hopefully A's on ASTROPHYSICS" to "Cosmological Q&A".

Thread copied to the Cosmological Q&A thread in the Big Bang and Cosmology forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.