Starlight

Hi Mr. Jack, Here's an article that can give you some basic understanding on it before Cavediver get's a chance to answer it. The fine structure constant Alpha

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The possibility that fundamental constants can change in time is predicted by some unified field theories. The detection of such a variation would be an important confirmation of these theories. The analysis of the spectra of distant quasars does indicate that the fine structure constant alpha (the constant which measures the intensity of the electromagnetic interaction) might be changing in time. Fine structure constant alpha is in fact a dimensionless combination of three other fundamental constants: alpha = e/hc (e - electron charge, h - Planck constant, c - speed of light).

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Hopefully Cave can explain it better for us.Hope the article helps, though.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

As I understand it... The redshift occurs with distant galaxies, not individual stars. Especially not anything in our Local Group - which is what I'm assuming you were visibly looking at.In fact, our Local Group, which the 2 largest galaxies are the Milky Way and Andromeda, are actually coming toward each other.

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The Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards our own Milky Way Galaxy within the Local Group; thus, when observed from earth, its light is undergoing a blue shift.

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SourceFurthermore, both redshift and blueshift aren't a visible phenomenon, it's is a measurment of the frequency of the emited light.

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While the terms "redshifting" and "blueshifting" imply significantly redder or bluer light, only the most distant galaxies and those moving at speeds far above average emit light that arrives with perceptible red or blue tinges. For the most part, shifting is not a visible phenomenon.

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Same source as above. Relative to us, and only when they are far enough from us.Hope this helped.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Hi Taq, According to the Big Rip hypothesis that's exactly what will happen.

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First, the galaxies would be separated from each other. About 60 million years before the end, gravity would be too weak to hold the Milky Way and other individual galaxies together. Approximately three months before the end, the Solar system will be gravitationally unbound. In the last minutes, stars and planets will be torn apart, and an instant before the end, atoms will be destroyed.

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The authors of this hypothesis, led by Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College, calculate that the end of the universe as we now know it would be in approximately 50 billion years.

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Hope this helped.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

No need, I'm sure you did as there are many within our Local Group. I believe you are getting a few facts confused here, RR. The galaxies within our Local Group are measurable, they show a Blue Shift indicating that they are coming toward us. This is the affect that Cave was talking about due to the Galactic core's gravitational attraction.The Blue Shifting of the galaxies within our Local Group is a measured fact. The galaxies within our Local Group have been measured and are Blue Shifting rather than Red Shifting.PS. If you don't mind could you split the posts and not put both me and cavediver on the same post. He knows a shit load more than I do and I'd hate for him to miss a question that can help both you and I because he may not notice that you replied to him on the post for me, thanks.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Thanks for the correction, Coragyps. I knew I should have looked that up to make sure, but I also knew if I was wrong someone would catch it.So question, is the megamillenial shifting to and from caused by Dark Energy - versus - gravity of the Galactic center/core?As I was reading up I noticed they mentioned Leo I was one of the furthest.

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At about 820,000 light-years distant, it is a member of the Local Group of galaxies and is thought to be one of the most distant satellites of the Milky Way galaxy.

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Does it's distance have anything to do with it's red shifting? Apparently some Russian (I'm guesing by the letters and movies I've seen) gaming website has the name. Games is the only english word I saw. So it looks like the Russian gaming nerds beat you to that word.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Minor quibble: Objects are not really attracted to each other, especially not by any "force"; that is old Newtonian physics.The seemingly attractive nature of gravity is due to mass's affect on space itself, not a force. The expansion doesn't affect individual stars.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Hi Rev, As cavediver said, it's complicated. However here's a link that explains what alpha is and what *affects* it has on the speed of light. Alpha constant

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Fine structure constant alpha is in fact a dimensionless combination of three other fundamental constants: alpha = e/hc (e - electron charge, h - Planck constant, c - speed of light). A recent publication in Nature suggests that this variation of alpha should be interpreted in terms of a changing speed of light. The claim that speed of light might be changing received huge publicity in mass media. However, it is well-known in scientific circles dealing with the problem of variation of the fundamental constants that only dimensionless constants (like alpha) should be considered in this context. Speed of light, in contrast, is a dimensionful constant. Recent works by Duff and Flambaum explains why [they] are wrong and cannot lead to any conclusion about a changing speed of light. However, changing speed of light is meaningless just from consideration of the problem of measurements, regardless of how people try to get around it.

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I don't fully grasp it that well myself either, so any questions you have should be directed to cavediver, or someone else with more knowledge of this than I do.But I hope it helped.- Oni

Hi Rev, The speed of light or (c) is constant. It does not change in a vacuum.What you are talking about, like with the Bose-Einstein theory - (which you got incorrect. Einstein and Bose did not slow down the speed of light, they proposed the thoery.) - is a medium set up to slow it down. As with air, or our atmosphere. The one propose by the Einstein-Bose condensate is a Super-atomic cloud/medium.Here's an article from Harvard on the experiment itself. Physicist slow down spped of light

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Light, which normally travels the 240,000 miles from the Moon to Earth in less than two seconds, has been slowed to the speed of a minivan in rush-hour traffic -- 38 miles an hour.

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An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together at super-low temperatures and super-high vacuum, they lose their identity as individual particles and act like a single super- atom with characteristics similar to a laser.

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Such an exotic medium can be engineered to slow a light beam 20 million-fold from 186,282 miles a second to a pokey 38 miles an hour.

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This so-called Bose-Einstein condensate was not actually made until 1995, because the right technological pot to cook it up in did not exist. Vacuums hundreds of trillions of times lower than the pressure of air at Earth's surface, and temperatures almost a billion times colder that that in interstellar space, are needed to produce the condensate. Temperatures must be lowered to within a few billionths of a degree of absolute zero (minus 459.7 degrees F), where atoms have the least possible energy and all but cease to move around.

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Hau and her group started with a beam of sodium atoms injected into a vacuum chamber and moving at speeds of more than a thousand miles an hour. These hot atoms have an orange glow, like sodium highway and street lights.

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Laser beams moving at the normal speed of light collide with the atoms. As the atoms absorb particles of light (photons), they slow down. The laser light also orders their random movement so they move in only one direction.

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Hope this helped,- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

The Big Bang model, the current model for the expansion of the universe, is only for our universe.Multi-verse hypothesis/theories are not covered in the Big Bang mdel.- Oni

I don't know what the KCA is, so I don't know what you're talking about.However, the Big Bang model, or the expansion model does not support a "first cause" argument. The Big Bang is not an event that took place, in other words, it's not a moment of "creation."However, that does not mean that multi-verses don't exists. Or as cavediver put it, that there are multiple multi-verse systems. It just means that the Big Bang model doesn't address it. It is addressed in other theories in theoretical physics. BUt it would be pointless to argue this since it is clear that you have very little knowledge of cosmology and physics. I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just stating the obvious.- Oni

You don't want people to insult you but then you make ignorant statements like the one above?You'll get back what you dish out. If you're going to act like a douchebag you will be treated as such.What do you know about string theory? You read some layman book, probably Brian Greene, and now you feel you can discredit the work done by actual theoretical physicist? Please, Rev! You're currently talking completely out of your ass and you have no knowledge of the subject to be able to give a proper, educated opinion on it.- Oni

Save face? Amongst my peers? , you might want to read a few of my post before you start accusing me of trying to save face. That's like having a degree from clown school. PS. no one gives a shit. Plus we are discussing cosmology, your degree is worthless in this subject. And in my opinion, worthless all together. You might as well have said you studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Again, no one gives a shit. I was actually a comedy writer for the KCA, also refered to as the Kids Choice Awards for Nickelodeon. And by the way, "serious amateur astronomer," means your an idiot with a telescope on the roof of your house.- Oni