M51 And Then Some

M51 and then some

Galaxies are often far more than the stuff we see, even in the best of Hubble photo's, there are stars, dust and gas that stretch out at densities too low to be picked up in some of the most iconic images.

Here M51 is recorded over 255 Hours, collecting all the light and gas at far lower densities, revealing the structure of M51 and the merging galaxy, and how huge plumes of stars and dust and gas are being kicked out way beyond the apparent confines of the spiral galaxy itself.

This is the same situation around most galaxies, the halo area reaching out from the Milky Way so far, it's thought in some parts to potentially be interacting with Andromeda's halo, over 2.1 million light years away, albeit at a very low level (so far).

Honeslty this is my one of favorite thing about these stories, how those characters are mentioned and you can find them elsewhere. And sometimes they do stuff like Gaz or the slaver who's name I forgot, or sometimes they don't, their life just continues away from the protagonists, like Hav.

Fun stormlight easter egg!

You remember Hav? A minor character, Kaladin's mentor when he first enlists in the army?

In Words of Radiance, when Kaladin meets Zahel and thinks about his past as an ex soldier (close but no cigar buddy), he wonders if Hav wound up in a monastery

Hav is not in a monastery. When Shallan is out on her first foray for the ghostbloods, we learn he's only a couple warcamps over guarding Amaram's manor!

And him and Kaladin never ended up seeing each other. Shame really.

It is sad, yes. All things fade, even the greatest things. The sky itself, around us, here.

But it's wonderful to me that we have it now, we can see it now, and we can study how it came to be.

And considering our lifespans, if we ever visit across it, it'll probably still exist.

Laniakea - The Supercluster of Galaxies🌌

Or: the infodump I'm writing to prevent myself from feeling upset.

Earth is part of our solar system, that is part of our home galaxy called Miky Way, which is part of a 'local group' of galaxies, which itself is part of a bigger group of galaxies called the Virgo cluster.

But the Virgo cluster itself is just one of a large number of galaxy clusters, themselves collections of hundreds to thousands of large galaxies which have been mapped out in the nearby Universe: the Virgo cluster, with the Centaurus cluster, the Great Attractor, the Norma Cluster & many others!

Together, they make up a much larger structure & if you sum up every galaxy in it, it is fully anticipated that the total number should exceed 100,000.

This is the collection of matter that is called beautifully after the hawaiian word which means 'immense heaven'

✨️Laniakea✨️

But let's start with the beginning, shan't we?

The Big Bang happened roughly 13.8 billion years ago & in the early stage of all that matter, antimatter, radiation, fields, etcetera, there wasn't a uniform sea of these energetic quanta.

Instead, there were tiny imperfections ⁠- at about the 0.003% level, which is VERY VERY SMALL- on all scales, where some regions had slightly more or slightly less matter-and-energy than average.

In each one of these regions, a great cosmic race ensued. The race was between two competing phenomena:

The EXPANSION, which works to drive all the matter & energy apart

The GRAVITATION, which works to pull all forms of energy together & causes massive material to clump & cluster together

With both normal matter & dark matter populating our Universe - but not in sufficient quantities to cause the entire Universe to recollapse (IMPERFECTIONS saved us!) ⁠- the first star formations happened & then star clusters, with the first ones appearing less than 200 million years after the Big Bang.

Over the next few hundred million years, structure began to appear on even larger larger scales, with the first galaxies forming, star clusters merging together, & even galaxies growing to attract matter from the lower-density regions nearby.

As time went on & on, galaxies gravitated together to form the Universe’s first galaxy clusters. With up to thousands of Milky Way-sized galaxies in them, massive mergers form giant elliptical behemoths at the cores of these clusters!

On even larger spatial scales & even longer timescales, the cosmic web began to take shape, with filaments of dark matter tracing out a series of interconnecting lines.

Dark matter drives the gravitational growth of the Universe, while normal matter interacts through forces other than gravity as well, leading to the formation of gas clumps, new stars & even new galaxies on long enough timescales.

Meanwhile, the space between the filaments, the so-called underdense regions of the Universe, give up their matter to the surrounding structures, becoming great cosmic voids.

Galaxies dot these filaments & fall into the larger cosmic structures where multiple filaments intersect.

On long enough timescales, the most spectacular nexuses of matter even began attracting one another, causing galaxy groups & clusters to begin forming even larger structures:

💫Galactic Superclusters💫

For me, it's a beautiful & a very comforting idea that represents structures on scales larger than a visual inspection would reveal.

But there’s a problem with Laniakea in particular & with superclusters in general: these are not real, bound structures, but only apparent structures that are currently in the process of dissolving away entirely.

There isn't just this "race" between an initial expansion & the counteracting gravitational force caused by matter & radiation.

In addition, there’s also a positive form of energy: dark energy. It causes the recession of distant galaxies to speed up as time goes on & gets more relevant the bigger the scale gets from which you look at it.

If there were no dark energy, Laniakea would most certainly be real.

Over time, its galaxies and clusters would all mutually mutually attract, leading to an enormous grouping of 100,000+ galaxies!

Unfortunately, dark energy became the dominant factor in our Universe’s evolution approximately 6 billion years ago & the various components of the Laniakea supercluster are already accelerating away from one another.

Billions of years from now, Laniakea will be torn apart by the Universe’s expansion, forever adrift as lonesome islands in the great cosmic ocean.

A bit sad, huh?

Thanks for reading, have an... air hug? Or a cookie. Let's stay with the cookie. 🍪

Please have this WONDERFUL visual of Laniakea:

Found on Pinterest.

If you really read all that - Wow. I wouldn't have thought that.

You have my honest appreciation.

💜✨️💜

Reblog for a wider audience please!

- me pulling up to Kelsier on a corpse boat

- Kelsier strolling up to Kriss and Nazh

- Vin demolishing Kredik Shaw

- Vin deleting Staff

- Dalinar "I'd never kill you Elhokar, also Im courting your mother"

what cosmere scenes would do numbers here as a gif set?

I want to follow more Elder Scrolls blogs so if you post Elder Scrolls stuff (exclusively or not), give this a reblog or comment or something and I'll follow you if I'm not already following you :)