Sunday, January 28, 2018

cosmology - How do we know for certain that space is expanding?


How do we know for certain that space is expanding?


Let's say that in the year 1950, we observe that galaxy 1 is 5 billion light years away from us and galaxy 2 is 10 billion light years away from us, putting both galaxies at a distance of 5 billion light years from each other. Then in 2013, we observe that they are now 7 billion light years away from each other so we conclude space is expanding.


We see that galaxies are move away from each other but how does that prove that space is expanding? Could this illusion of expanding space simply be due to something larger in mass pulling the farther galaxy 2 away from galaxy 1? This larger mass could be accelerating the velocity of galaxy 2 faster then it's accelerating the velocity of galaxy 1.




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