Outer space what is it made out of?

Originally posted by Galvatron
Just because it is infinitely dense, doesn't mean it has infinite mass. True, singularities is where relativity breaks down, which is why quantum physics was developed in the first place. Whos to say all black holes are singularities. I bet there might be one out there that is a very massive neutron star that has just the threshold of gravity influence to where the velocity of light is insufficient to escape. Or is that impossible? (I don't know, Im asking) Does the very nature of having enough gravity in order to keep light from escaping mean the source of gravity must be a singularity?

well, first off, if you're a neutron star, you're not a black hole. you need to be far more massive and far more dense than a neutron star to become a black hole.

second, d=m/v. as v approaches 0, d approaches infinity. whats the volume of a singularity? in the ballpark, of, oh, i dont know, 0 (that's in Megameters cubed (Mm)^3)

third, there are lots of places relativity breaks down.

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Space is volume effectively without matter.
It is length, width, and depth.

Because space-time is warped by gravity it must have some kind of tension or equilibrium that causes mass-less/gravity-less space to retract/flatten up.
Im guessing that space requires time to exist, but don't have a good guess about how that works.

Since time slows down in gravity wells, I wonder if time is running faster out in the depths of pure space.
Maybe when we look at distant objects we actually look forward then backward in time as the lightrays arc up out of our planet/star/galaxy well up to the high empty space and then back down into some objects gravity well.

I have wondered if ultimately in string theory there might be distance strings that comprise space and time strings. (sort of out there, but you never know)

Also I wonder which way on the (4D) over-sphere of space(time?) the valleys of gravity/mass go. My initial guess is that they point into the center of the over-sphere and that empty space tends to be expanding out faster than they do, but this is just speculation.
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wou;ld you people stop making up these excuse to cover up your mistake space is made of nothing no air no wind well solar winds but they dont involve oxygen

Originally posted by Day Slurpee
Did you not take Physical Science in 8th grade?

- Inappropriate. I would have to if you look at my location. Secondly, I'm an International Business major, Astronomy is only an interest of mine.

I would like somone to arbitrarily settle this infinite mass thing with fact. From what I understand, Amorymeltzer agrees with me. As stated at the top of page 2.

If singularities had infinte mass, then why are black holes labeled as having x amount of solar masses?

D=M/V Mass = 1, V = 0. Meaning density is infinity. I don't see where mass has to = infinity. Someone please inform me.

[edit on 10-12-2004 by Galvatron]

This is exactly what I mean when I discuss public schools on fora like this.

Space is not "empty"

"It is often a misconception that space is a vacuum or simply empty. Space is a nearly perfect vacuum, even better than the best ones made in labs on earth, but it is not devoid of everything. The fact is that space is filled with tiny particles called cosmic dust and elements like hydrogen and helium. This applies for interstellar space also and all the previously mention particles make up what is known as the interstellar medium."

hypertextbook.com...

To summarize, the space does contain

(a) gravitational and electromagnetic fields
(b) plain old elementary particles ejected from stars
(c) non-trivial amounts of dust
(d) in the vicinity of stars, huge amounts of solar wind, inasmuch so as to cause austronauts to seek shelter and orient their space vehicles, to protect themselves from the blast. I think about it as being shot with fine grain lead shot

NetStorm and Aelita nailed it - space is far from nothing - lot's of crap out there, from hydrogen to the heaviest of elements as created when stars go boom.

Also, someone posted earlier that "dark matter" was causing a slow down and contraction and that is just plain wrong. The latest observations have shown the universe to be expanding and actually accelerating!! It's up near but not quite c and getting faster!

Also the notion that dark matter causes our view of space to be dark is actually wrong as well. It's the expansion of the universe that causes space to be dark - if not, space would be brighter than the sun. A decent college level astronomy text will detail that for you - The Physical Universe by Frank Shu is an oldie but goodie in that regard....

Originally posted by UofCinLA

Also, someone posted earlier that "dark matter" was causing a slow down and contraction and that is just plain wrong. The latest observations have shown the universe to be expanding and actually accelerating!! It's up near but not quite c and getting faster!

Not to change the subject, but it is sorta related..I saw a Discovery Channel special regarding the universe, that brought Newtons Third Law to the extreme....(Sorry I Can not find the link for the show) but in essence they were saying, that though the universe is expanding, in something like a 100 Google years (thats also a number not just a search engine) the universe will collapse and poof it's gone.

Anyone else see this?

NetStorm - that maybe old data being used. The expansion observations were just done and confirmed quite recently (2003-4 timeframe) and unless some other force is found, this puppy we are in is going on and on like the energizer bunny....

Just think, the further matter moves away from each other the force of gravity continues to weaken. I suppose dark matter could slow this due to friction but I think that's why the observations were done - to see if there was any slowing and they found the opposite - acceleration....

Now the stuff messing with the Pioneer probes is quite interesting...

This is confusing as hell to me. I know that we think of space as void of anything but recently scientists have discovered that the space between many galaxies is increasing not because they are moving away from each other but because they are being pushed by the �empty� space between them.

The original theories of the big bang had matter moving out at near c and the thought was matter and hence gravity would slow that process and possibly lead to a steady state or contraction - depending on value for the mass of the universe.

The latest obs show that the universe is actually accelerating and they have yet to pin down just what is causing that.

It actually nifty to realize we are zipping along with the galaxy at near light speed....

Originally posted by UofCinLA
The latest obs show that the universe is actually accelerating and they have yet to pin down just what is causing that.

It could be from the space expanding in between these objects. Seems the fabric of space is growing and pushing the galaxies. As if you put 3 raisins on a loaf of rising bread, soon they would be some distance from each other.

Yup - that's what expansion is all about. I like the old high school example of a balloon that you put ink dots on a blow up as that is basically what's happening.

Problem is gravity is an attractor force and something is accelerating the expansion and we have no clue what that is - everyone thought dark matter would add to the mass and slow the expansion but something is adding energy to the process to increase it....

Space is time. But shows no proof of "god"Space/time = god?

We think it is a vacuum because we don't know what it actually is. Dark matter or something.

It is like being in a swimming pool, except you can't physically touch the water...not with our primitive technology.

I don't know...don't feel like thinking to hard on the subject

Originally posted by UofCinLA
everyone thought dark matter would add to the mass and slow the expansion but something is adding energy to the process to increase it....

Actually there's lot of dark matter, there's lot of galaxies which have to have about nine times as much mass in dark matter as in visible matter, otherwise they wouldn't stay in "one piece".

But what's is causing acceleration is something else.

Originally posted by slank
Maybe when we look at distant objects we actually look forward then backward in time as the lightrays arc up out of our planet/star/galaxy well up to the high empty space and then back down into some objects gravity well.

Time dilation caused by normal objects is very small.

Also we don't look light reflected back from there, what we are seeing is light from those others stars and galaxies. And distance to object says how far we look back in time.

M31 is two million LYs away meaning we see it like it was two million years ago because it tooks that long from light (/information) to come here.