From Howard Messing
Regarding the “Lonesome galaxy” feature (2 April, p 37). In terms of what you can see with the naked eye, for the most part the universe is already a dark, lonely place. The only reason we see anything at night this way is because we are located in a galaxy that is itself located in the middle of a group of galaxies.
Other than the stars in the Milky Way, without a telescope pretty much all we can see is four or five barely visible galaxies.
And the only reason we can see them is because they are part of the Local Group of galaxies, which are nearby and gravitationally bound to us.
If you were suddenly transported to a random spotin the universe, the chances are that the sky would be completely dark.
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