Who discovered that all galaxies are moving away from each other?

Answer 1

No. there are, in fact, clusters of galaxies that are revolving around one another as a result of their mutual gravitational influence. Now and then, galaxies in a cluster will collide with one another with some spectacular results (over billions of years). Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy, but no one alive will be around to watch. Occupants of earth may never know it is happening.

Answer 2

Imagine a loaf of uncooked raisin bread dough to which you add yeast. The bread dough will rise, getting larger and puffier and thus each raisin will move slightly further away from it's nearest raisin-neighbors.

It is not the raisins which are causing this to happen, but rather the dough.

Therefore, the galaxies are moving apart means that Space itself -- empty space -- is expanding and the galaxy raisins are merely "along for the ride", so to speak, not the force causing the expansion.

Answer 3

Galaxies that a close together may orbit around a common center of mass. They may even collide. For example, our very "close" neighbor Andromeda will collide with our galaxy, the Milky Way, in about 3 billion years. However, when galaxies are not very close together (as with most galaxies, they will always move away from one other. This is because the space between the galaxies is expanding. While the expansion of space is very small, the distance between any two galaxies great enough to overpower gravitational attraction. So, in summary, all galaxies are moving away from all other galaxies except for those that are very close to one another!

Answer 4

Wait! That's only half of the story. The other half is: The farther they already are

from us, the faster they're moving away from us.

Why ? That's a terrific question ... one that astronomers and cosmologists have been

struggling to answer since the facts were discovered about 80 years ago.

Soime of the material that has come out of the search for answers is contained

in the Big Bang theory, String Theory, and M-Theory.

Answer 5

True. The universe is expanding. The further away a galaxy is, the faster it's moving away. Close galaxies, like Andromeda, are close enough that the force of gravity is strong enough to overrule the expansion, so it isn't moving away, but yes, most galaxies are far enough away that gravity is too weak to keep them from flying away.

Answer 6

Actually some galaxies are moving toward each other. Our Milky Way will "merge" with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 2.5 billion years. [See related question]

Edwin Hubble discovered that most galaxies are moving away from each other.

Answer 7

No. What Hubble did was to demonstrate that most of the distant galaxies exhibit a "red shift" in their spectra, and that the magnitude of the red shift in the spectra is roughly proportional to the distance.

We INTERPRET the red shift as indicating that the universe is expanding, that the red shift is due to the speed at which those galaxies are moving away from us. (Not all galaxies have a red shift; the Andromeda Galaxy has a blue shift, indicating that it is moving toward us!)

But we must never forget that this is an INTERPRETATION, not PROOF. Some so-called scientists forget that evidence and facts trump cherished theories and explanations every time, and they begin to ignore the evidence and believe the theory. This person is not really a scientist!

So far, we have no contrary evidence, so we accept Hubble's explanation; that the red shift indicates that the other galaxies are moving away, and that the more distant galaxies are moving away faster than the nearer ones. That doesn't seem to make sense, so we THEORIZE that the underlying meaning is that the universe itself is expanding. The common illustration is putting ink dots on the surface of a balloon; as the balloon expands, the dots appear to all be moving away from each other. But it's possible that contrary evidence will be discovered, and we have to be ready to reinterpret the evidence - ALL the evidence - when and if that happens.

Answer 8

They are moving away from each other. The Universe is expanding. Space itself is expanding.

Answer 9

Yes. With the exception of the 'Local Group' of which we are a part. All galaxies are moving apart in a general expansion of the universe.

Answer 10

red shifted