10 Weird Things You (Probably) Didnt Know About the Milky Way
ane: All Naked-Eye Stars Independent in Milky Way
It isn't that long ago that we used to think of the stars as calorie-free leaks in a black curtain, just a piffling further than we could attain, and sky was on the other side. In actual fact, all the stars we tin can see in the dark sky with the naked heart, which is around nine,096 or 4,548 from each hemisphere, are independent within our own Milky Mode galaxy. Plainly the biggest concentration of stars we can see lie in the management of the Galaxy's galactic plane and central bulge, which unfortunately is impossible to see due to widespread light pollution, unless viewing from rural areas on a clear, moonless night.
2: The Milky way Is Vast
The Milky way is an estimated 100,000 light-years in diameter and contains up to 400 billion stars, including our own Sun. In spite of such a huge number of stars, the distance betwixt World and fifty-fifty our nearest star system, Blastoff Centauri, is vast. Needless to say, comprehending such astronomically large numbers and sizes isn't like shooting fish in a barrel. Tin you lot imagine 186,282 miles, for instance? Of course you tin can't, and yet light travels that far in a unmarried second, or 5.88 trillion miles in a year. To put things into some kind of perspective, if you were to count at a charge per unit of one per second, it would take most eleven and a half days to reach just one million. Alpha Centauri, our nearest star apart from the Sun, is 25.6 trillion miles (4.3 calorie-free-years) away – skilful luck imagining! Fifty-fifty with the best applied science we tin can currently muster information technology would take centuries to reach our nearest star. The Space Shuttle, for case, would accept around 165,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri, while the Voyager-1 spacecraft which has at present left our solar organisation will not pass other stars for 40,000 years.
3: Merely One Of Many Galaxies
The signal beingness that nosotros're really not good at large sizes! The ancient Greeks, for instance, believed that our solar organisation represented the whole universe, with the Sun, Moon, planets, and fixed stars revolving effectually the Earth on a daily basis. In fact, Archimedes estimated the whole universe to be around the equivalent of ii light-years across, which is far cry from its actual distance of about 14 billion light-years. Size is so elusive that it wasn't until 1923 that Edwin Hubble was finally able to bear witness that our galaxy was not the whole universe, and that in fact there were hundreds of billions of galaxies beyond our own. According to most recent estimates based upon Deep-field images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the number of actual galaxies in the universe could exist more than than 2 trillion.
four: Classified Every bit A Barred Spiral Galaxy
The Milky way is a spiral armed galaxy, and as is typical for about threescore-vii per centum of those, ours is barred. It is suspected that such bars are the upshot of a galaxy cartoon gas from its spirals into its heart, but as the density of the bars increment over the millennia their ain gravity destroys them resulting in spirals without bars. It seems to be part of a middle-aged spiral galaxy's normal life bike to accept bars for a while.
Some spiral galaxies grade by brushing past other galaxies. Their gravities shred their globular shapes and leave long trails of stars that wrap around the remaining large bodies of stars. Often that is the cease of it, with their relative speeds so high that they will never interact again. Sometimes there is plenty attraction between them that they condense to form a single milky way. While the above instance is not rare, near spirals are explained past one or both of these theories. You tin can look at them at your own convenience. The Density Wave Theory, which explains Saturn'southward rings, explains some spirals, while the SSPSF model explains many others, simply the language and mathematics in the latter may be hard to assimilate. In any example, the Milky way has grown by cannibalizing and absorbing other smaller galaxies that it has come into contact with over millions of years, including dwarf galaxies.
5: On A Collision Course With Andromeda
Interestingly, 2 galaxies could pass correct through each other and accept no collisions despite their billions of stars. In bodily fact, that scenario is rather more likely than an bodily collision considering of the vast distances between objects, which is a bit of a relief since we and the Andromeda Galaxy are headed for a coming together in the far time to come. At nowadays, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are approaching each other at a charge per unit of up to 140 kms/s, giving them a meeting point of 4 billion years fron now.
Of form, all this matter heading for the heart of the milky way has to go somewhere. The oldest star in our galaxy is virtually 13.82 billion years old, forming simply shortly after the Big Bang, which means a lot of time has passed, and a lot of matter has gone tumbling into the middle of the milky way. There awaits a supermassive black pigsty chosen Sagittarius A, situated 26,000 light years abroad from Earth with a mass equivalent to 4.1 million Suns, and a source of intense radio waves.
vii: Galactic Year Last 250 Meg Years
A galactic yr lasts between 225 and 250 million years in our role of the milky way, since rotation speeds alter depending on location. The best estimate for ourselves appears to exist in the 240 million year range, since we're almost ii-thirds of the manner out on the Orion Arm of our galaxy.
8: A Star Maker
With between 100 and 400 billion stars in the Milky way galaxy, and plenty interstellar dust to make 100 billion more than, nosotros're not probable to run out of stars any time soon. There is a distinct advantage to having so many stars. Current theories of stellar formation seem to indicate that most stars will take planets.
9: Milky Way Could Contains Millions Of Planets
Planets and each sunday will have a "Goldilocks" zone. In other words, it'south possible that about stars will accept a planet (or two) that volition autumn in the habitable zone for life where information technology'south not too cold and not too hot — it's but right. It could have liquid water, if it's solid; even if information technology'southward a gas giant it could take water in the atmosphere, so that something organic could float and live, despite the lack of "surface".
10: Frank Drake And Alien Civilizations
Drake was a radio astronomer who was intrigued by the notion of extraterrestrial life communicating deliberately (or accidentally) past radio. He set upward a conference and created an equation to stimulate word among the attendees. It was never intended to correspond reality, but to aid people consider but what nosotros need to know in lodge to seek other life in the milky way. Some elements we know and can compute; others are "best guesses".
Either mode, all the equation shows is that there might exist hundreds or fifty-fifty thousands of civilizations in our galaxy. Just because civilizations rise and fall over time, they don't all exist simultaneously, and most will be nomadic or agrarian, just not technologically capable. If there are technological civilizations, they should number near 43 (arguable, but every bit good a guess as whatsoever) at this bespeak in galactic evolution. With fairly fifty-fifty but random distribution they are probably about 40+ light years autonomously. Unless we're especially lucky, we probably don't have a nearby neighbour.
In fact, assuming we're average (we don't know plenty to assume anything else) that means at that place are 21 civilizations that are less capable than us, and 21 that are more capable than the states. That is not a big pool to draw from, just information technology is possible that we might someday make contact with another civilization. I adopt to remain optimistic.
Source: https://www.astronomytrek.com/10-interesting-facts-about-the-milky-way-galaxy/
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