Lightyears, Miles, Galaxies etc.
Discussion
Inspired by the Perseid Meteor Shower Thread - 'Roughly', am I correct?
186,000 miles per second, 11 million miles per minute, 670 million miles per hour, 16 billion miles per day. 6 trillion miles per year = 1 lightyear.
To cross our Galaxy it would take 100,000 lightyears. That's 600,000,000,000,000,000 (quadrillion) miles. Even a Lexus would struggle to do that without any problems!
If I'm fatally incorrect.....
186,000 miles per second, 11 million miles per minute, 670 million miles per hour, 16 billion miles per day. 6 trillion miles per year = 1 lightyear.
To cross our Galaxy it would take 100,000 lightyears. That's 600,000,000,000,000,000 (quadrillion) miles. Even a Lexus would struggle to do that without any problems!
If I'm fatally incorrect.....
It's too late to do the maths...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
wiki says said:
The stellar disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years (9×1017 km) (6×1017 mi) in diameter, and is considered to be, on average, about 1,000 ly (9×1015 km) thick.[1] It is estimated to contain at least 200 billion stars[12] and possibly up to 400 billion stars,[13] the exact figure depending on the number of very low-mass stars, which is highly uncertain. This can be compared to the one trillion (1012) stars of the neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy.[14] The stellar disc does not have a sharp edge, a radius beyond which there are no stars. Rather, the number of stars drops smoothly with distance from the centre of the Galaxy. Beyond a radius of roughly 40,000 light-years (4×1017 km) the number of stars drops much faster with radius,[15] for reasons that are not understood.
Extending beyond the stellar disk is a much thicker disk of gas. Recent observations indicate that the gaseous disk of the Milky Way has a thickness of around 12,000 ly (1×1017 km)—twice the previously accepted value.[16] As a guide to the relative physical scale of the Milky Way, if it were reduced to 10m in diameter, the Solar System, including the hypothesized Oort cloud, would be no more than 0.1mm in width.
The Galactic Halo extends outward, but is limited in size by the orbits of two Milky Way satellites, the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds, whose perigalacticon is at ~180,000 ly (2×1018 km).[17] At this distance or beyond, the orbits of most halo objects would be disrupted by the Magellanic Clouds, and the objects would likely be ejected from the vicinity of the Milky Way.
...and lots more atExtending beyond the stellar disk is a much thicker disk of gas. Recent observations indicate that the gaseous disk of the Milky Way has a thickness of around 12,000 ly (1×1017 km)—twice the previously accepted value.[16] As a guide to the relative physical scale of the Milky Way, if it were reduced to 10m in diameter, the Solar System, including the hypothesized Oort cloud, would be no more than 0.1mm in width.
The Galactic Halo extends outward, but is limited in size by the orbits of two Milky Way satellites, the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds, whose perigalacticon is at ~180,000 ly (2×1018 km).[17] At this distance or beyond, the orbits of most halo objects would be disrupted by the Magellanic Clouds, and the objects would likely be ejected from the vicinity of the Milky Way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
I got into a fatal conversation with my 8yo when she asked "Why do stars shine?" which led to many, many more questions and many, many "What!".
Gigantic figures she couldn't get her head round which left her, and me, more confused.
She did finish my aborted attempt at being informative by saying, "I'll just look on Google dad" with a little pat on the arm.
Gigantic figures she couldn't get her head round which left her, and me, more confused.
She did finish my aborted attempt at being informative by saying, "I'll just look on Google dad" with a little pat on the arm.
EricIdle said:
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough!
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
The sun that is the source of all our power
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side.
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough!
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
The sun that is the source of all our power
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side.
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
Daniel1 said:
100,000 light years? Pah!
Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
It really is facinating! Human beings literally have no chance of exploring these places. I wonder how much of the universe will "touched down" on before armageddon. Hopefully we can find another habitable planet by the time ours is gobbled up by the sun in around 900 million years.Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
Largest known object in the Universe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall
1.37 billion light years long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall
1.37 billion light years long.
PD9 said:
Daniel1 said:
100,000 light years? Pah!
Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
It really is facinating! Human beings literally have no chance of exploring these places. I wonder how much of the universe will "touched down" on before armageddon. Hopefully we can find another habitable planet by the time ours is gobbled up by the sun in around 900 million years.Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
rich1231 said:
PD9 said:
Daniel1 said:
100,000 light years? Pah!
Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
It really is facinating! Human beings literally have no chance of exploring these places. I wonder how much of the universe will "touched down" on before armageddon. Hopefully we can find another habitable planet by the time ours is gobbled up by the sun in around 900 million years.Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
PD9 said:
rich1231 said:
PD9 said:
Daniel1 said:
100,000 light years? Pah!
Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
It really is facinating! Human beings literally have no chance of exploring these places. I wonder how much of the universe will "touched down" on before armageddon. Hopefully we can find another habitable planet by the time ours is gobbled up by the sun in around 900 million years.Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
Daniel1 said:
PD9 said:
rich1231 said:
PD9 said:
Daniel1 said:
100,000 light years? Pah!
Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
It really is facinating! Human beings literally have no chance of exploring these places. I wonder how much of the universe will "touched down" on before armageddon. Hopefully we can find another habitable planet by the time ours is gobbled up by the sun in around 900 million years.Shapley supercluster galaxy is 400,000,000 lightyears across
Which is all mind boggling then add string theory, 11 dimensions, and alternative realities, ie the multiverse with an infinite number of universes existing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=kxvF3K83g8Q&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=kxvF3K83g8Q&fe...
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