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Do cosmologists know for sure that the Big Bang is propelling all matter away? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aCosmicWave@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Is it at all possible that instead of being pushed away, we are instead getting pulled toward something huuuuuge via gravity? As if we are falling into something way greater than ourselves? I thought this was a wild idea but after I Googled it I found out that there is such a thing as a “Great Attractor”. Something 150 million light-years away is literally pulling all nearby galaxies towards it but no one knows exactly what it is.

So how do we know there aren’t any other Great Attractors, Greater Attractors, ad infinitum?

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[–] qjkxbmwvz@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's at a much, much larger scale** than that

our local group is collapsing in on itself, and it's ~10M lightyears in diameter.

** talking about length scales only makes sense in reference to the specifics

two bananas separated by 10M lightyears, with no other matter nearby, would (I'm guessing) be expanded away, but a cluster of galaxies will not.

[–] grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Using a banana for scale really made this so much better. :)

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, finally I can imagine the vastness of space. Thank you, bananas!