Obligatory "sorry it's been a long time since I posted" comment. Life, grants, student, etc All of the usual excuses! But I plan (i.e. hope) to do more writing here in the future. But what's the reason for today's post? Namely this video posted on your tube. The conclusion is that humans are destined to explore the Local Group of galaxies, and that is it. And this video has received a bit of circulation on the inter-webs, promoted by a few sciency people. The problem, however, is that it is wrong. The basic idea is that accelerating expansion due to the presence of dark energy means that the separation of objects will get faster and fast, and so it will be a little like chasing after a bus; the distance between the two of you will continue to get bigger and bigger. This part is correct, and in the very distant universe, there will be extremely isolated bunches of galaxies whose own gravitational pull overcomes the cosmic expansion. But the rest, just ho
