After a few years, however, maybe by about 2020-25, I expect they will be considering alternative cosmological models that would allow for a much older universe. Maybe ten years after that the BB may no longer be the prevailing model in cosmology because of observations like this one, but in much finer detail. This is my prediction. The distant universe is the same as the local universe even though is some ways it presently appears to be different.

/believes there is a God that created everything, but is not blind to scientific fact

I think I recall reading of Patrick Moroe [D'oh! Typos! - ed.] Moore doing an informal experiment once to see how many M45 stars people could see unaided eye – the average being six.

Aha! Found it & found I’ve misremembered :

“How many of the Pleiades can you see with the naked eye? I once carried out an experiment, enlisting the help of viewers of my television programme The Sky At Night and found that the average number was indeed seven, though some people could see more. The record is reputedly held by a nineteenth century astronomer named Eduard Heis, who could count nineteen.”
– Page 156 ‘Patrick Moore’s Passion for Astronomy’, P. Moore, Brunel House, 1993.

So my apologies. I got it wrong and most people *can* after all see seven stars in Messier 45.

Although I wonder when that experiment of Moore’s was conducted and how much light pollution has increased since.

Galaxies that are “close” to each other, as they are in a cluster, do not move away from each other. The gravitation within the cluster keeps them together, and as they travel around the centre of mass of the cluster, they can bump into each other.

Computer simulations have been done on galactic collisions, and some can easily be found on the web. In fact, Phil posted one a couple of years ago: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/08/07/galaxy-smash/ . As to exactly what will happen when we collide with Andromeda. I think there are far too many unknown variables to give even an approximate answer.

Gravity is indeed the weakest force, but it’s also the only one that is always attractive. Electric charge, for example, comes in two flavours which we call positive and negative. In any object there are almost exactly as many positive as negative charges, so the total charge is zero. With gravity that does not happen, more mass always adds to the attraction.

If Dark Energy rules the universe in the distant future, this may change: there may come a time when gravity is no longer strong enough to keep clusters together. Even further into the future, Dark Energy may rip galaxies apart, then stars, and eventually even atoms.

I can’t wait to see what will happen after that…

Kaler suggests that the misisng Pleiad is instead Celaeno which is one of the fainter of them although Sterope – is very faintest named “sister” and could also be the Lost Pleiad which, Greek legend has it, hid in shame because she married a mortal whereas the others married gods or something. Another version has it Pleione as the mortal mother of the other eight named Pleiads with Atlas their father being the Titan who holds up the world.

I think I recall reading of Patrick Moroe doing an informal experiment once to see how many M45 stars people could see unaided eye – the average being six.

(P.S. to Messier Tidy Upper – just to clarify to others, Subaru Telescope is not affiliated with the car company bearing a similar name.)

Ooops, yes. Sorry that wasn’t supposed to be product placement at all just an observation.

@12. jayscheuerle Says:

Unfortunately, Subaru (the car co.’s) badge only contains six stars! The six sisters?

Most people can only see six stars, it takes very good eyesight to see more. Try counting them next time you see the Plieades and see.