if galaxies further out are moving faster then the ones closer to us?
459100
As the distance between galaxies increases, the gravitational attraction between them reduces, the momentum that the receding galaxies have makes them move at an apparent faster rate. Those galaxies that are strung close together being held together by their gravitational forces and hence their momentum is retarded by this gravitational force
301811
It doesn't work that way. Because the universe is still expanding, if you were to stand still at one edge of the universe, you would see the opposite edge traveling away from you at FASTER than the speed of light. (That's one of the peculiar thing about quasars ... they're so far away that the expansion of space between that location and this location makes them appear to be traveling faster than lightspeed.)\n\nSo how far from one side of the universe to the other? Too late! It's already changed! How about now? Too late again! It's already ... and so on.
84637
We are part of the Milky Way. Excluding the Milky Way, the closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy with possibility that the two galaxies may collide within the next three billion years. It is currently 2.5 million light years away.
1075536
No. There is no center of the expansion. Every place in the universe would see redshifts acting exactly the same way we see them. So if you were in a galaxy 4 billion light years from us and looked around,  the other galaxies would be moving away from you at a rate that is proportional to their distance from you. This happens no matter where you are in the universe.\n\nRemember that motion is relative. In other words, we don't say that some galaxy is moving at 400 km/sec. We say it is moving at 400 km/sec *with respect to us*. But if you look at relative motion with respect to any other galaxy, the expansion looks the same.\n\nOne problem with the term 'Big Bang' is that it encourages people to think of the universe expanding like the debris from a bomb. That is *not* how it is. There really is no center of expansion!\nNeat huh?
6752
Blue shifting galaxies are ones that are headed more towards us than away. The spectrum we see from a galaxy is a combination of its more or less random speed relative to us due to interations with other galaxies, and the redshift from the expansion of the universe.\n\nUnless a galaxy is very close, the redshift expansion will dominate so that only redshifts are detected.\n\nThe big exception is the Andromeda galaxy, which is a spiral just like the Milky Way galaxy, and a "mere" 2.9 million light years away and is the closest big galaxy to ours. \n\nIn terms of being worried about it well...Andromeda is heading out way, and well collide with the Milky Way Galaxy in about 4 billion years or so.\n\nThat means is one were to stand on Earth or Mars the sky would be increasingly taken up by the fuzzy blog of Andromeda until suddenly (relativity speaking) the whole things is a huge explosion of stars.\n\nNot a literal explosions. Stars are very far apart from each other relative to their size, and about zero stars will actually collide.
1171072
Not at all.  The Milky Way, Andromeda and a few other galaxies are in the "local group".  The galaxies in this group orbit around each other.  Just like our planets.  At times some planets will be seen to recede from us and at other times they will be getting closer as all go along in their respective orbits.
1048247
There may be objects (tachyons) that move faster than light, up to perhaps infinite speeds.\nHowever, nothing already slower than light can accelerate to or beyond the speed of light.
678688
It's not a yes or no question.\n\nCan one travel faster than the speed of light?  No.\n\nCan objects be moving away from each other at a relative rate faster than the speed of light?  Yes.\n\nMeditate upon this, and you may become enlighted, or enspeeded, or something...
41177
I did a Yahoo Search for most distant galaxy.\n\nThe "farthest" galaxies seen in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are about 13 billion years ago in our past.  Given that the light from these galaxies travels at the speed of, well, light, they are 13 billion light years away.  Or, in miles, that is about 76,424,219,300,000,000,000,000 miles away or 76 sextillion miles away.\n\nActually, I take that back.  The actual galaxies are probably even farther away than this.  What we are seeing is where they were 13 billion years ago.  Given that they are moving away from us, they are 13 billion years away plus the distance they travelled away from since that light was emitted 13 billion years ago.\n\nScientists are very interested in these most distant galaxies because the provide information about the evolution of the universe from the "Big Bang" event to now.\n\nThe projects surrounding these distant galaxies are referred to as Deep Space projects.
694313
it's just the way we observe galaxies moving away from each other.  The further out from each other they are, the faster away from each other they move.\n\nFrom this and by analysing measures done on large numbers of galaxies, and then by taking these velocities and distances but plugging in older times in the data, it was found that, well, at some point back in time, all that stuff must have been concentrated at one point.\n\nAs the quality of experimental data improved, the Big Bang was the only theory that survived.\n\nBut in the early days, it was far from the only proposed model, so it is not at all, as you seem to believe, that physicists decided that you had to "build with explosions" ;-)\n\n\nhope this helps
842008
Yes, it is true that there are stars and galaxies whose light has not yet reached Earth. This is because light travels at a finite speed (about 3.00E8 km/s). It does not lose energy to space either... and the only thing in space that disrupts light's path by any real amount is gravity.\n\nWhen we look into the sky at night we are seeing the past. When we look at our Sun we are looking 8 minutes into the past (light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach us)... The nearest stars to our Solar System are hundreds, even thousands of light-years away (a light-year is the measure of the distance that light travels in a year)... So, when you look at the stars in the sky, you are seeing them as they were 100's, 1000', if not millions or billions of years ago. Scientists, using our most advanced telescopes have looked as far back as when our Universe was only a baby (about 450 million years old). As the Universe is about 15-20 billion years old right now thats very far back in time.\n\nTo answer your question about faster-than-light travel. As we know physics today, that is impossible. Einstein and many other relativistic theortists have shown time and time again that faster-than-light travel has a high probablity of impossibility. Also, light speed and (if possible) faster than light speed travel would affect the traveler's perception of time relative to the inertial frame.\n\nThis is a basic theory in relativity and I really don't want to get into that.
1112921
No, but there are other Galaxies in the Universe
1151814
Yes but only to the person observing from one comet the speed of one is only relitive to the still space it occupies , but yes compared to the other it would appeare to go faster than the speed of light.
355200
Theoretically, there is such a thing. It is called a tachyon, and has the ability to travel at beyond light speed. However, the physics of such a particle are very hard to figure out, because of the sheer mechanics of such a feat. \n\nAnd, as one of the guys above me said, galaxies that are beyond 13 billion miles away from us are travelling away from us at light speed and greater; this is why we cannot see them. The only way we know they're out there is because we think the universe is infinite, and that it is much the same throughout as it is here.
335664
We have no idea, mainly because the visible universe is still expanding.  This is because light travels at a fixed speed and light from the far side of the universe has not yet caught up with us on this side. So the light we see from farthest away, the “other end”, was actually emitted billions of years ago by stars that are no longer where they appear to be to us.  That being said so far all we've seen just indicates more galaxies of the type found at this end. Most physicists today attribute this expanding movement to the “big bang” theory.  I’ll include an article you may find interesting in my sources.\n\nBest Regards,\n\nArmust
890850
Yes, our galaxy (and the local group) is generally heading in the direction of the virgo cluster of galaxies. All together, we are moving in the direction of a much larger structure called the 'Great Attractor' that is in the direction of the constallation of Centaurus. I'm guessing that this is what you heard about.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
1007479
Yes.  Beyond our own Milky Way galaxy there are estimated to be 200 billion more galaxies in the visible universe at distances up to 13 billion light years from Earth.