35 replies to this topic

[Cheezdude]

Guess I gotta start a new one. 

[DancingBearly]

That going to take a while:coffee: Which star goes in first? How long to complete one gallaxy?

[Cheezdude]

Ok. We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way. At it's center is a super massive black hole called Sagittarius A.
The galaxy is a disk-shaped structure. Earth is located within the galactic plane of this disk, around two thirds
of the way out from the center, on the inner edge of a spiral-shaped concentration of gas and dust called the
Orion–Cygnus Arm. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter containing
200–400 billion stars. Makes you feel small, doesn't it? 

[Cheezdude]

The most current estimate for the age of the Universe is about 13.7 billion years. Our Milky Way has been around for about 13.6 billion of those years, give or take 800 million years. The oldest stars in our the Milky Way are found in globular clusters, and the age of the galaxy is determined by taking the age of these stars, and then extrapolating the age of what preceded them. Though some of the constituents of the Milky Way have been around for a long time, the disk and bulge themselves didn’t form until about 10-12 billion years ago, and the bulge may have formed earlier than the rest of the galaxy.

[Cheezdude]

Our solar system, is located in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky way galaxy. A spur in the outer part of the galaxy. It takes our solar system
approximately 250 million years to complete one orbit of the galaxy. So, we've orbited the galaxy about 20 times since our planet was formed.

[Cheezdude]

The idea of this post originally was to get us to think about the our size , compared to the galaxy, and the universe.
As a comparison, think of this. If you put a quarter on the ground, and think of that as the size of our solar system,
the entire north American continent would be roughly the size of the galaxy.

[TEO]

When gazing at the sky on a clear night what a speck we are comes to mind. Gazing into the seemingly endless blue during the day, sometimes peeking at the stars beyond the blue brings forth the same.

[Jabadoodle]

This gives some perspective. Amazing.

[melissaphish]

OMG Gary I love that video so much!!!

[Cheezdude]

Very cool jabadoodle! Thanks for posting that.

[DeadFred]

We are so infinitesimal. And the universe is so beautiful!

[Like_Water]

I can dig it - - - -

[hoagie]

We are so infinitesimal. And the universe is so beautiful!

on the flip side, we are so unimaginable HUGE from the subatomic perspective...

[Cheezdude]

Here's another cool video. Gives some amazing perspective, on the size of the universe.

[Cheezdude]

Each glob of light, is a galaxy. Containing billions of stars.

[INarvi]

my mind -> :Blown:

[Cheezdude]

Check this out. http://scaleofuniverse.com/

[u.s.blues]

Check this out. http://scaleofuniverse.com/

that is a great perspective.

[hoagie]

When gazing at the sky on a clear night what a speck we are comes to mind. Gazing into the seemingly endless blue during the day, sometimes peeking at the stars beyond the blue brings forth the same.

The sky is not actually blue.

[Cheezdude]

The sky is not actually blue.

Ok, I respect your premise. But this is a philosophical discussion. Not a statement of actual fact.
Although for accuracy's sake, you are correct. I still like to think of the sky as "blue".

[Cheezdude]

So, in the latest issue of Discover, there's an interesting article about the Kepler space telescope, who's purpose is to discover planets around stars in our galaxy.
Data extrapolated from the mission so far, would suggest, there are more than 150 billion planets in our galaxy alone. Imagine how many galaxy's there could be,
and multiply times 150 billion. We can't even conceive of numbers that big. We may be able to compute it, or even write it down if we wanted. But to wrap your mind
around the scale of it, is impossible. At least for me. I do enjoy trying though.

[Cheezdude]

This is really cool. Thanks to Jwheelz for finding it.
http://workshop.chro...ents.com/stars/

[Mr_Pat]

[Cheezdude]

Awesome photo Mr Pat. Where's that from?

[Cheezdude]

The nearest star to us, is called Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.24 light years away. 

The fastest spaceship we've ever built, topped out at at just over 157,000 MPH.

At that speed, it would take about 17,000 years to get there. 

 

 

Pick up the latest National Geographic. Amazing issue, devoted to what makes us want to explore. 

[Cheezdude]

The universe is bigger than you can imagine. But it's fun to keep dreaming. 

[Jabadoodle]

[Jabadoodle]

[Jabadoodle]

[hoagie]

Feesh!

[Jwheelz]

great thread, don't know why I've never been in this forum before

[hoagie]

[Cheezdude]

great thread, don't know why I've never been in this forum before

 

Thanks for stopping by. In a way, you've contributed. I copied this link, http://workshop.chro...ents.com/stars/ from one of your posts. 

[Cheezdude]

 

Depiction of a multiverse of seven"bubble" universes, which are separate

spacetime continua, each having different physical laws, physical constants,

and perhaps even different numbers of dimensions or topologies.

[Cheezdude]

So the multiverse theory is an idea I've been dwelling on for a while now. Yeah, our universe is unimaginably large.

Try and imagine several. Maybe an infinite number, of unimaginably large universes. 

[hippieskichick]

So the multiverse theory is an idea I've been dwelling on for a while now.

 

Watched a pretty interesting PBS show on this a little while back. Neat stuff. They've got a few good shows that actually break stuff down to a reasonably understandable level for the general pop (string theory, relativity, and the like).