Calculating the Center of the Universe

I watched Interstellar for the fourth time today - hence the geeky title of this post! It is definitely my favorite movie of all time, simply because it makes me think.


What are we doing here, on this tiny little planet, scattered amongst a sea of stardust? Why not abandon silly little constructs like currency and wealth and pool our resources to pursue the beauty and adventure that nature has to offer?


Yeah, I know, there are a lot of reasons why that can't happen, but I still wish it was possible. I want to experience another planet - just think of it! Our Earth is so beautiful, but it's one of trillions of planets in our universe. (cue Cooper's line: "this world's a treasure, Donald, but it's been telling us to leave for a while now"). There's so much out there to find if only people were motivated by passion rather than greed.


Anyway, semi-random thought: where is the center of our universe? Where did this supposed "Big Bang" begin? It seems like a discovery of utmost significance, possibly bordering on spirituality, would be waiting there in the place where existence began.


Doing some quick research, I found that scientists really have no clue whether there's a center to the universe. In fact, many think there isn't one. Apparently, no matter where you are in space, it always looks like the stars are moving away from you. That sounds kind of confusing, but it can be explained (or at least speculated on) by looking at a balloon.


Take any old balloon. With a marker, draw some dots on the surface. Maybe ten or so. As you inflate the balloon, the dots will all move away from each other.


So it's like the surface of that balloon... only in 3D. Hurts my brain.


Just a thought-experiment:


Imagine we could build a machine that could sense all the mass in the universe and accurately map it on a sphere. The readings might look like this:

(most yellow = least mass, most red = most mass)
The "reddest" region is in the direction of the center of the universe.

And if we sent a probe out, say, a light-year or so, we'd have two overlapping readings which might look like:

(Probe's readings + the line from Earth)
With two lines, we have an intersection in 2D space, and a more accurate estimation.

 This process would be repeated with at least two more probes to essentially triangulate the center of the universe in 3D space, the same way your phone can be triangulated with four or more satellites (although I don't have a diagram for that one - my Photoshop skills end here).

Of course, such a machine is undeniably impossible right now - our means of calculating masses and velocities of galaxies are rough and usually "ball-park" estimates. But still... I have these weird thoughts sometimes... That's what watching sci-fi does to me - I can't help it. For now, I'll just have to be content with my mother's sarcastic statement: "Drew, everyone knows that the center of the universe is YOU." Yeaahhh... thanks mom, I guess.