Here is another intriguing Science article, for anyone interested. Science is a great way to stretch those curious young minds. And sometime it is difficult for us as parents to answer the gifted kid's questions... How many stars are in the sky? Or what is beyond our known universe? Here is an article that attempts to answer that last one. I have copied of the first part of the article here. Click on the link to National Geographic to continue reading.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-dark-flow.htmlUnknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe, Study Says
John Roach for National Geographic News
November 5, 2008
Something may be out there. Way out there.
On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.
Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour�a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.
The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger�a multiverse�and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
The theory could rewrite the laws of physics. Current models say the known, or visible, universe�which extends as far as light could have traveled since the big bang�is essentially the same as the rest of space-time (the three dimensions of space plus time).
Picturing Dark Flow
Dark flow was named in a nod to dark energy and dark matter�two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena.
The newfound flow cannot be explained by, and is not directly related to, the expansion of the universe, though the researchers believe the two types of movement are happening at the same time.
