I'm not sure I get this. We can see galaxies at all distances in every direction. It seems like if this were true, we would see galaxies nearby in two directions (along the edge of the balloon), very far way in one direction (across the balloon), and nothing in the fourth direction (out from the balloon). That is, unless every part of the visible universe is our part of the skin of this "balloon", and the universe is billions of times larger than we currently envision it.
This is perhaps the most important and telling image ever taken from outer space Does anyone else know what this is? And why it is so important?
There is no inside vs outside. The universe isn't a thing. It is everything. It is the inside and the outside.
It's actually an image of the universe at about 13 billion years ago. It is called Cosmic microwave background radiation, and it's taken from the WMAP satellite. In short it is the image of the building blocks of everything in the universe before there were galaxies. But the reason that it is important is because: It is the strongest proof / evidence of the Big Band Theory. It's kind of complicated to explain entirely (I don't fully understand it myself) but it's all here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
Well, here's where the balloon is a little helpful in a different way, if I understand it. (And again, the universe is not the surface of a ballon, since it's 3D instead of 2D.) You and I and most humans are comfortable thinking of space like 3D graph paper. And if you lived in *2D* you would be on a sheet of graph paper. If you curved that paper (like the surface of a balloon is curved), it would confuse you because the idea of "edges" would get totally screwed up. The universe isn't a 'flat' space, if I understand it correctly. It's not the 3D equivalent of graph paper, but rather is curved. My mind cannot get it, outside of the equations. It makes sense mathematically to me, but I don't pretend to have a clear image in mind. That is probably a really bad attempt at a written explanation.
Wow.... I'm not sayin it's wrong or right, but I found it hard to follow any of that theory/explanation one bit... but what do you mean by an actual image of the universe 13 billion years ago? That would seem.... impossible??
from my interpretation, there was so much heat created at the moment of the "big bang" that there is still radiation present from the event, i.e. it is still cooling off from such high temperatures
Here's what I understant: It is an image looking back 13 billion years ago shortly (400,000 years) after the big bang. At that time the temperature of the universe was A LOT hotter than present. But over 13 billion years it has cooled very much. That image is the "after glow" or the background heat of when the universe has very hot. The image is at very low frequency waves since the molecules or the light has cooled and slowed down. Also it is also the image of when light first scattered in the universe, before then there was no light.
I got those pics from AOL. Now I can't find the link. There were still a few others that were awesome!
