[Airbrush]

Is the accelerating expansion of the universe only experienced between superclusters? Do superclusters also fall apart, or do they remain gravitationally bound?

If the expansion is only between superclusters of gallaxies, then it almost seems irrelevant to us, since our supercluster dominates our local experience. Our universe, out to the edge of our supercluster (10s or 100s of light years out) is not expanding at all.

This post has been edited by Airbrush: 29 November 2011 - 05:21 PM

[zapatos]

While dark energy is thought to be felt throughout the universe (even between atoms in your body), it is only at a scale larger than superclusters that its effect is measured.

Distance between superclusters increases. An individual supercluster will not fall apart and will remain gravitationally bound.

I would imagine that even if our galaxy was falling apart due to expansion, that would also be irrelevant to us.

[Widdekind]

zapatos, on 29 November 2011 - 06:11 PM, said:

While dark energy is thought to be felt throughout the universe (even between atoms in your body), it is only at a scale larger than superclusters that its effect is measured.

Distance between superclusters increases. An individual supercluster will not fall apart and will remain gravitationally bound.

I would imagine that even if our galaxy was falling apart due to expansion, that would also be irrelevant to us.

If so, the how would 'DE' affect the orbits of the planets in our star system ? Or, of stars in our galaxy ?