Submitted by chandra on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 11:23.
Like the jelly beans in this jar, the Universe is mostly dark: 96 percent consists of dark energy (about 70%) and dark matter (about 26%). Only about four percent (the same proportion as the lightly colored jelly beans) of the Universe— including the stars, planets and us—is made of familiar atomic matter. Read about the make up of the Universe
(1 vote)
Wow.
Facisnating to think about. Great share.
Expansion
Maybe I'm naive, but the current logic of the universe seems somewhat inverted. The idea that space is expanding seems more a matter of perspective, than reality. Empty space is a dimensionless substrate which houses energy, and space void of all energy possesses no definable properties of dimension itself. As I see it, empty space is infinite, and incapable of expansion. Energy is dynamic and ever changing, and also how we define or experience the universe. If we see the universe as expanding, then it seems more reasonable to consider that we are merely contracting, which makes our perspective of space as expanding. It's an opposite and equal reaction to our perspective in the universe. If there is a uniform loss of energy in all mass/energy states, detection of this condition would be very difficult from close proximities, as everything we use to detect change is made of the same substance and the loss is acting uniformly. Over longer increments of time and distance though, energy loss would become easier to detect. Dark energy would be a somewhat meaningless concept, as expansion and acceleration would be a result of energy loss, not an increasingly powerful invisible repulsive energy state over time.
Just a thought...
Nice Information
This is really a great and encouraging news for Universe. Very interesting.
Good example to understand
Good example to understand about our universe but i have one question what is mean by dark energy you talking about in this article can you please explain?
Interesting!
I found your blog very interesting to read.
Dilantha
nice way to explain
This is a great picture to show what the universe looks like. Very interesting!
Jelly Bean Universe
Nice example, very interesting, but I think since the universe is expanding, what with the part that the universe expands to? Does the 'four' percent is decreased when the universe expanded? It's hard to me to understand an analogy on the infinite with the finite (the Jelly Bean). The answer is still out there...
John.
Sobering Thought
This is a very sobering thought and makes me realize just how small our world really is. Its hard to wrap your mind around this thought.
John Acai Campbell
Jelly Bean Universe
By inference, we can only claim to have (at most) a 4% understanding of the nature and composition of our own universe. Staggering thought!
John McDermott
Intresting
Good example to understand about our universe but i have one question what is mean by dark energy you talking about in this article can you please explain.
Dark energy is a mysterious
Dark energy is a mysterious source of energy introduced to explain the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. One possible explanation is that it is the energy present in empty space - "vacuum energy" - which has the properties of a repulsive force.
CXC
It´s quite frightening but
It´s quite frightening but fascinating at the same time.
Great explanation
I showed this to my 12 years old son and he seems to begin understending the universe nature
Dark Matter
Could you try to explain in "human words" what Dark matter is?
Kind Regards
Jonas
RE: Dark Matter
For more information on dark matter, see this entry:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/dark_matter/index.html
-Chandra pub team
I must say this blog post
I must say this blog post covers a really interesting topic...
Very informative, it made us readers aware about it...
In my part this is actually my first time reading about it...