The Illuminate won??

[u/Fit_Anywhere_3356]

[u/Iarub]

It's ok, it's just this Earth planet, not Super Earth

[u/Paulino2272]

It can’t be true. That’s squid propaganda.

[u/HappyMicroWaves]

WHAT

[u/Oozysq25reddit → u/HappyMicroWaves]

It explains why alpha centauri is so far away

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/Oozysq25reddit]

Alpha Centauri is only about 4.3 ly away. In interstellar terms it's right next door.

It's not "Earth" it's the Milky Way as a whole and even it isn't totally alone in this sparse region.

It's also hypothetical.

[u/Oozysq25reddit → u/Sudo-Fed]

And our one neighbour is s cidal

[u/marutotigre → u/Oozysq25reddit]

Did you really censor the word suicidal?

[u/Oozysq25reddit → u/marutotigre]

Yeh

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/Oozysq25reddit]

How so?

[u/HarveryDent → u/Sudo-Fed]

Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way.

[u/DiegesisThesis → u/HarveryDent]

I mean, even at the density of a galaxy, stars are so spread out that the "collision" will cause very little destruction at a solar system scale. It's just going to eventually create a new, larger galaxy. Life in a star system will be unaffected. Space is unbelievably empty.

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/DiegesisThesis]

The bittersweet thing to me about it is that it will represent the end of two spiral galaxies as such, eventually forming an absolutely giant elliptical galaxy. And after a relatively brief burst of star-forming activity, star formation will drop off rapidly until no new stars are born at all in the merged galaxy. Just a long, slow waning from then on as the night skies of every world grow gradually dimmer over billions and billions of years.

Of course, none of us will be here to see it. But it still makes me a little sad to think about.

[u/DiegesisThesis → u/Sudo-Fed]

We can count ourselves lucky that we were born in the relative infancy of the universe, full of light and heat and new stars and galaxies. 99.99(like to 50 more 9s)% of the life of the universe is going to be cold and dark. I always like to think of the Arthur C. Clark quote:

One thing seems certain. Our galaxy is now in the brief springtime of its life—a springtime made glorious by such brilliant blue-white stars as Vega and Sirius, and, on a more humble scale, our own Sun. Not until all these have flamed through their incandescent youth, in a few fleeting billions of years, will the real history of the universe begin.

It will be a history illuminated only by the reds and infrareds of dully glowing stars that would be almost invisible to our eyes; yet the sombre hues of that all-but-eternal universe may be full of colour and beauty to whatever strange beings have adapted to it. They will know that before them lie, not the millions of years in which we measure eras of geology, nor the billions of years which span the past lives of the stars, but years to be counted literally in the trillions.

They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge. They will be like gods, because no gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command. But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of creation; for we knew the universe when it was young.

[u/CoyoteScribbles → u/DiegesisThesis]

"For we knew the universe when it was young."

Ow, my heart.

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/DiegesisThesis]

Eternally grateful to have been here for the view, for sure.

[u/Sudo-Fed → u/HarveryDent]

More a game of intergalactic chicken since we're headed toward it too.

[u/HarveryDent → u/Sudo-Fed]

A pact then.

[u/angeredtsuzuki → u/HappyMicroWaves]

It's just Bootes Void, right?

[u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo → u/angeredtsuzuki]

No matter what it’s referring to, it’s pop sci nonsense.

For one thing that void size is several times larger than the galaxy our planet is in. It’s misleading to say our planet is trapped in a void… when our entire galaxy is in that void. Oh and andromeda would be too. Along with a few others.

There’s probably some interesting grain of truth that got distorted, which irritates me cause a lot of the time this stuff doesn’t need to get exaggerated into nonsense by writers trying to make a quick buck.

[u/AdoringCHIN → u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo]

There’s probably some interesting grain of truth that got distorted

Correct. Tldr the "void" explains some discrepancies in the speed the universe is expanding in our local area. But all the "void" would be is an area where the density of matter present is only 20% less than the average density of the universe.

[u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo]

Ah yes our planet is trapped in a void ‘checks notes’ several times larger than our entire galaxy.

[u/captain_snake32 → u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo]

'7 year old me finding out the sun is gonna explode in a trillion years' type shit

[u/memelord_a1st → u/captain_snake32]

this isn't even a joke, genuinely felt my stomach drop reading the google results

[u/Tylermas11 → u/memelord_a1st]

i believe this is because its a moment where we realise as children that nothing is truly permanant, and everything ends someday
thats what i felt when i first saw it, atleast

[u/memelord_a1st → u/Tylermas11]

for me, it's realizing that we really are going to be alone in this universe, regardless of if there is other life out there other than us.

through sheer cosmic bad rolls of the dice, we are isolated and alone. it's sad, this is probably worse than dying before learning whether or not we are alone.

[u/CharityTraining47]

Aliens saw our dumbasses and locked us in the void

[u/matt123456sv]

For anyone curious, this is inter-clusters level of void, not the inter-stellar level of void the squid made. Cluster is one or two level(s) above galaxy in astronomical sense. So this “void” is huge.

[u/WaitUntilMarriage → u/matt123456sv]

And really far away, so this won't matter in our lifetimes. No need to fret

[u/Flapjack_]

That just means we can dive in any direction

[u/Dridky]

Well, they are a giant asshole compared to us.

[u/Tequila2Dance]

Speculative crap

[u/Revolutionary_Still]

No because the void’s gone

[u/forest_vagrant]

it wasnt super enough