r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/StemCellPirate • 12h ago
Video Earth’s evolution measured in galactic years.
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u/LyqwidBred 11h ago
Its a cool little video, but it makes it look like sun is zipping around within the galaxy. I believe the entire galaxy is orbiting the center, so the entire spiral formation should be spinning in the video.
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u/Kasern77 11h ago
Fun little fact: you'll notice that the orbit has a wobble where the solar system dips down and up past the galactic disc. Each time we're more likely to be exposed to the gravitational influences of other bodies passing by, which tugs on the Oort cloud and potentially makes asteroids bounces back inwards to us and increases the risk of Earth getting hit by an asteroid.
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u/SeaCounter9516 10h ago edited 5h ago
Fun fact: it’s a visualization. That has no intention of being accurate. Shows how if you just state something competently in the NPC subs you get upvoted.
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u/Slevin424 8h ago
Saddest part is we only have 20 or so orbits left before our sun dies. We’re in our midlife crisis stage of our solar system.
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u/JesseMakeGoodChoices 6h ago
And we’re spending our precious time killing each other, enslaved, stressed, and putting a dollar amount to our worth.
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u/Slevin424 6h ago
If we put all our effort into space we could have begun colonizing mars either by now or very soon. But we spend all our money and resources on weapons. We’re a sad race. Space telescopes on mars would be able to see much further than on earth to due low atmosphere and low light pollution. We’d know so much more of our universe.
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u/sjayvee 11h ago
I feel so stupid.. the sun has an orbit?!
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u/2LostFlamingos 11h ago
Everything goes around something else.
Sun moves around the center of Milky Way galaxy.
The galaxy itself is also moving.
The universe is incredibly complex.
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u/Mysterious-Tackle-58 11h ago
Also, the sun orbits the common center of gravity in the sol-system. But since sol is like 99% of the sol-systems mass, the common center of gravity is within the sun.
BUT the star does wobble. And said star wobble is one way for scientist to see whether there is at least one planetary body around a star!8
u/paddyo 4h ago
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
It's orbiting at 19 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 40,000 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 itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at 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 Earth27
u/NachoEvans 11h ago
More mind blowing, there are galaxies that orbit ours, and the Milky Way is in an orbital dance with Andromeda. There are probably larger orbits that we don't see or understand yet, because all of human history has been too short to see or document them.
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u/sjayvee 11h ago
Is there a science of orbits?? Is the orbiting motion as a force responsible for the expansion of the universe?
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u/NachoEvans 11h ago
Off the top of my head, I don't think we can fully explain the expansion of the universe just yet and chalk it up to Dark Energy. As far as science of orbits, there is lots of stuff out there. Did a quick search and found this for example
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u/EagleDre 11h ago
Or it’s an illusion. I think we can say that out loud as a theory today without being considered a flat earther :)
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u/MyPigWhistles 11h ago
The sun has an orbit (earth is in it), but the sun is also orbiting the galactic center. Together with our entire solar system. The entire milky way is also orbiting a shared center of mass together with the Andromeda galaxy.
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u/luisgdh 11h ago
And this center of mass orbits the virgo cluster. Which, in turn, orbits...
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u/MyPigWhistles 11h ago
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think at this point we're not talking about actual "orbits" anymore. Or at least not clean orbits. Afaik, galaxies and clusters are more drifting through the universe, always affected by each other's gravity to different degrees, but not orbiting a clear center of mass.
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u/saint_of_thieves 11h ago
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd say that the Milky Way and Andromeda are orbiting one another either. At some point, a third galaxy could come close enough to tear either galaxy away like some sort of hand off. We can say that MW and Andromeda are affecting each other's movement.
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u/manofth3match 2h ago
Milky Way and Andromeda are actually on a collision course and will merge in a few billion years.
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u/Inside_Swimming9552 11h ago
I think at a certain point galaxies are far enough away that the expansion of space overrides gravity.
I'm no physicist but I'd imagine this means that if there was a gravitational centre between clusters of galaxy's they would move further from that gravitational centre such that the circumference of the orbit increases by a larger amount than the amount of circumference travelled by the galaxies so they will never complete an orbit ever again.
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u/sussydestroyer 11h ago
Everything in the universe orbits something bigger than itself
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u/Truestorydreams 11h ago
So that means the sun is orbiting around the centre of the milky way?
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u/Tight-Temperature670 11h ago
Yeah dude, there's a super massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy
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u/wiltony 11h ago
Yep
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u/Sweet-Explorer-7619 11h ago
Soo, what does the milky way orbit?
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u/snapplesauce1 11h ago
The galaxies orbit each other mutually as mass clusters in a point of balance as they travel thru space. Milky Way and Andromeda are in a spin with each other as they are closest to each other. But they're all spinning around each other instead of a larger central mass.
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u/PantsLobbyist 11h ago
That’s a question with a bit of a longer answer. More-or-less, nothing. The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy (along with the Local Group) “orbit” a shared centre of mass (they all orbit one another). We will eventually collide with the Andromeda Galaxy. Beyond this, as part of two superclusters (Virgo and Laniakea) we are all drifting toward the Great Attractor which itself is drifting toward the Shapely Supercluster. Unlike our circumstances with respect to Andromeda, due to universal expansion (dark matter keeps us accelerating at a rate which overcomes gravity), we shouldn’t ever reach the Shapely Supercluster. So while we’re being pulled toward it, we’re actually moving away from it.
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u/SleepyTester 11h ago
Andromeda in the first instance, though they are more pulling toward each other than orbiting. Then the Local Group, a fifty-galaxy neighbourhood, then the Virgo cluster, then the Laniakea supercluster.
After that probably some larger cluster, I'm not sure where it ends
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u/hereforyebeer 11h ago
Sagittarius A- a supermassive black hole about 4 million times greater than the mass of our sun.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies have some gravitational relationship with each other and are actually on a collision course towards one another!
We’re also a part of the Virgo Supercluster, so we got that going for us.
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u/sussydestroyer 10h ago
Yes, and the milky way also orbits around other clusters of galaxies and their center of mass/gravity.
This is how galaxies merge.
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u/Mirar 9h ago
It's ... uh ... not like the video but gravitational pull will make things orbit around each other, the shared mass center.
All the stars in the milky way share a mass center, so everything will orbit around that. Just like earth and moon share one and orbit around each other, and earth and sun (+ some other misc planets) share one and orbit around that. (Yes, the sun actually also orbits around that.) And the nearby galaxies also share one and will orbit around that. But now we're talking _sloow_.
The path of the orbits get a lot more involved if you're picky, but the approximation is good enough.
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u/TerrapinStateofMind 11h ago
You're dead, didn't you know the wheel is turning and it can't slow down ⚡😂
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u/Worth-Guest-5370 11h ago
I guess now we should begin auditing your other comments...? Take them in this new context?
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u/jtcompound 10h ago
Unrelated, but if you had a ship with unlimited fuel and traveled at 9.8m/s2, to simulate earths gravity, it would take you about 20 years to reach the center of the milky way. After around three years you would reach 99.99% the speed of light and light. Just over 26,000 years would have passed on earth.
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u/UnRealmCorp 2h ago
This is one trope I'm amazed has never shown up. In interstellar they sent one team. Why not send a other "backup" team a few years later with updated tech, resources etc. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Eventually mankind is either gonna perish, or make something super advanced and catch up with the initial team at some point.
You arrive in 3 years to a planet that was supposed to be uninhabited and when you get there your great grandkids colonized the place.
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u/sjayvee 10h ago
I need to watch Interstellar again lol
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u/jtcompound 10h ago
I imagine when you got there, there would already be a human colony in place
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u/SaltyTemperature 9h ago
And they’d have travelled faster than light, and be amused at the old timey chemical rocketship and dated tech showing up
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u/James_T_S 11h ago
Yep. We are on a wild ride through the galaxy. Put your hands in the air!
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u/sjayvee 11h ago
Haha! It boggles my mind, honestly. To realize we are all moving/ spinning… we just take it for granted because- Gravity!
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u/LostnFoundAgainAgain 11h ago
Relativity, gravity is only a part in it all, there's more to it and it's rediculously complex.
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u/Demonic_Storm 11h ago
just like we orbit the sun it orbits the milky way black hole, everything orbits the heavier object (and that is also a simplification, but good enough) but this vid is stupid and probably wrong, but i havent checked so dont take that as a fact
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u/sjayvee 11h ago
lol thank you. Dizzying to think about! I’m sure I learned this in school but it probably broke my brain so i filled it away…!
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u/Demonic_Storm 11h ago
no problem! and in case you are curious (and your brain can handle it XD) ill try to explain more in depth how it works, so its more than "light object orbits heavy object" is more that everything orbits a center of mass, you probably do know about that, but your understanding is probably focused on the center of mass of one object, so now try to imagine all of outer space (even the "empty" space) as one object, to make it easy lets just focus on the solar system, so the moon doesn't orbit the earth, the moon and the earth orbits the center of mass that's a little inside the earth (but not in the middle), and the sun and jupiter orbit each other around their center of mass, which is actually pretty "far" (in human measuring units) from the sun as far as i can remember, and it can get sooooo much more complicated than that, but that's as far as im semi-confident to say, as a fun fact there's also points in space (for earth's called Lagrange points) where you can put something orbiting empty space, kind of like just floating there, and one of those points is where the James Webb telescope is located
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u/sjayvee 11h ago
Wowzers! Thx internet science friend 🩷
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u/Demonic_Storm 11h ago
no problem!!, and if you are hungry for more, you should check out Kurzgesagt In A Nutshell in YouTube, they upload sciende videos (space, biology, physics and more) and they explain even better than i could ever, very fun to watch and their videos are always warranteed to be amazing
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u/Chrono_Convoy 12h ago
Seems extremely oversimplified
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u/Silly_Off 11h ago edited 11h ago
So do the different zones of the Milky Way affect our solar system in anyway as we rotate around it? Like how can we even test the passing of spiral arms of the Milky Way when they take millions of years? How could they definitely say that doesn’t play a role on how our planet behaves?
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u/Slevin424 8h ago
It’s called speculatory science. We know we orbit around the galaxy. We know there’s a black hole in the middle keeping us there. And we know our Sun sometimes gets pulled slightly off course by passing other systems but never too far off course. So you take the systems we have to pass and can make an educated guess as to how much it changes our orbit. This video however is a very rough visualization. Very… rough.
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u/Strong_Jello_739 11h ago
So what does the Milky Way orbit? From what we know everything orbits something
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u/Astrogod07 11h ago
Everything is subject to gravitational forces, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a true orbit. The Milky Way is part of a local cluster of galaxies that are all strongly bound to each other and do roughly orbit the group’s center of mass.
Our local group is part of the Virgo Supepercluster of galaxies. While there is an incredibly concentrated mass that attracts objects within the cluster, at this point things don’t truly have a nearly defined orbit due to the strong and complex forces at play.
Above this scale, the expansion of the universe starts to truly counteract gravity. At the largest scales, the universe kind of pulls matter into large cobweb like structures with filaments stretching between and filed with clusters of mass.
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u/BrilliantBig342 11h ago
Or is dark matter making it clump like this? Gravity on large scales ends up making things spheres. Idk just tossing it around.
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u/Slevin424 8h ago edited 8h ago
There is a theory of a large orbit of the universe. It’s possible there’s a cluster of supermassive black holes. Like stupid big. We know these big boys exist as we’ve discovered TON 618 and Phoenix A. A cluster of those things would be powerful enough to be the center of orbit seeing as how we don’t exactly know the limits of a black hole.
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u/XEagleDeagleX 11h ago
Sure would be interesting if I could trust a single thing made by AI
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u/ExtraEmuForYou 9h ago
It really is crazy to reframe your perspective on occasion.
Like, for example, we are spiritual beings piloting biomechanical suits of flesh and bone that exist on a planet that (to our knowledge) is the only planet that can support life like us, orbiting our Sun in a solar system that essentially acts as its own space ship of sorts as it orbits the center of a galaxy. This galaxy, in turn, has its own path of travel that is going to collide with another galaxy at some point.
It really makes you realize just how lucky we are, you know?
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u/StemCellPirate 12h ago
The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years.
Cosmic Year Archived 2014-04-12 at the Wayback Machine, Fact Guru, University of Ottawa
Leong, Stacy (2002). "Period of the Sun's Orbit around the Galaxy (Cosmic Year)". The Physics Factbook.
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u/paxwax2018 11h ago
Everything shown here is wrong.
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u/diyandmc240 11h ago
Right like why is the sun bouncing around on its orbit? It should be near circular or at a bare minimum elliptical. I tried to verify if there’s any reason it would be bouncing around like that, there isn’t any evidence that I could find
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u/Retzl 11h ago
Spoken like a flat earther. "Im going to deny what years of research have helped conclude with an uneducated nuh uh"
Bring some proof instead of just denial, Dunning-Kruger.
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u/paxwax2018 10h ago
The Galaxy is rotating and the sun with it. The model of the solar system spinning like that is long debunked.
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u/Retzl 10h ago
The video shows exactly that... did you not watch it? The sun is rotating, the galaxy is rotating... what are you talking about? Are you trying to claim the planets dont follow the sun thru its travels?
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u/paxwax2018 10h ago
The sun stays in its arm of the galaxy it’s not rotating through it faster than the galaxy is spinning. The solar system isn’t travelling like that it’s not a useful representation of how it moves.
Why the Viral Vortex Animation is Wrong
Perpendicular Tilt Myth: Viral videos falsely show the planetary orbital plane perpendicular (90°) to the Sun's direction of travel. The real ecliptic is tilted at roughly 60°. [1, 2, 3]Trailing Planets Myth: Because of this 60° tilt, planets are not dragged behind the Sun like a comet tail; they spend time both in front of and behind the Sun relative to its galactic path. [1, 2]
Vortex Fluid Misuse: A vortex is a fluid-dynamics term involving drag and friction (like water in a drain). Space is a vacuum, and planets are bound by gravity, not fluid resistance. [1]
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u/Retzl 10h ago
The planets are in front of and behind the sun in the video. The person simplified that part of this to show something else. Nice use of AI btw -.- "Ai tell me exactly what I want to hear and disregard the topic at hand"
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u/paxwax2018 10h ago
Uh huh, and the sun is zooming around while the galaxy stays still?
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u/Retzl 9h ago
Do you remember in school when being taught about atoms they showed us a nucleus with static circles showing where the electrons orbital said nucleus? Do you remember when they told us later on that that isnt how atoms actually look ad that it was demonstration purposes to teach us?
They removed unnecessary information as to not bog down the point they were making. Its not that what they taught wasnt true, but it was the whole truth. I guess the nuance is lost on you tho :/
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u/paxwax2018 9h ago
So both depictions are useless and wrong? Thats your big point? Wow.
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u/Retzl 9h ago
No, my point is they sacrificed accuracy in one aspect to focus on a diff one. Like one does when making a 2d map of a 3d sphere, accuracy is lost somewhere. You need better reading comprehension...
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u/liquor-ice-mixer 11h ago
is there any side effects when the solar system gets closer to the smbh? in the animation it looks like occasionally we MUCH closer
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u/MisinformedGenius 11h ago
I don't know why the animation does that, probably just to make it look cooler. The Sun takes a fairly circular path around the galaxy - it's slightly elliptical, but not by much. Its path also isn't quite a perfect ellipse because we're being affected by spiral arms, close-passing stars, and other concentrations of math. But again, nothing like the animation.
There aren't any effects so far as I know to being closer to the galactic center - we don't get very close. We are currently at a point in our orbit where we are closer than normal.
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u/emascars 11h ago
Damn, I had to check the numbers cause I couldn't believe it...
As someone very passionate about astronomy, I know very well the mindboggling size of the milky way, so I didn't expect that from heart creation to today it did roughly 20 revolutions... But the numbers don't lie...
Earth formed 3.7 billion years ago, and the milky way does one revolution every 225-250 million years... Life started forming 3.5-3.8 billion years ago... So yes, ~20 rev from earth formation and ~16 from early life formation...
It's absurd how fast the milky way rotates, it has a diameter of 100.000 light years... I did know that dark metter had to exist otherwise ordinary metter's gravity wasn't enough to keep it together, but Jesus Christ, one revolution per 230 years is FAST 🤯
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u/Glass_Quarter_7586 11h ago
this is one of the biggest downfalls to the reality of teleportation/ time travel
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u/5elementGG 10h ago
Serious question. Is there any correlation between the sun’s position in the galaxy to earth’s major events? Like mass extinction or something? Is there some region of the galaxy that’s more dangerous along sun’s orbit?
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u/Holiday-Policy-5107 11h ago
And yet, the stars have remained in the same position the entire time 🤣🤣🤣 seems legit
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u/Conscious-Sun-6615 10h ago
stars are moving, if you go back 12000 years you’ll see different constellations in the sky
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12h ago edited 11h ago
[deleted]
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u/MondayBorn 11h ago
I know a psychic who can predict the past
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u/Burdenofbruce 11h ago
Weird, I know a historian who can predict the future
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u/Astrogod07 11h ago
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. So say we all.
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u/Flying_Dutchman92 11h ago
We can calculate orbits and locations in 3-dimensional space. We do this all the time, from satellites to local planets. This is no different, just larger (time)scales.
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u/YouClutchh 11h ago
Those assume that things are always the way they are during our time, who’s to say that things weren’t drastically different 100 million years ago
With how easily the world recovers from natural disasters and man-made events, it’s not that hard to think that the universe could easily recover from crazy changes over the course of millions of years… We know nothing, we speculate and theorize, we can prove none of this, regardless of models, AI, or time scales
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u/Squirrel_Kng 11h ago
Sounds like you’re having an existential crisis. This is the matrix bro and you’re just a dream.
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u/Esilai 11h ago
We can outright measure the speed of things orbiting the galactic center using Doppler Shift. We can also see stellar remnants and solar systems in various stages of formation, so we have a fairly accurate picture of what the life of a star looks like. “We have no way of knowing” isn’t an argument. More of a tell that you don’t know anything about this field.
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u/YouClutchh 11h ago
But again, alot of it is speculative… When we’re looking in the rear view mirror, especially that far, there’s a lot of if thens that go into the conclusion. This is fact, yall just don’t like it.
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u/Dr_Sus_PhD 11h ago
This guy thinks the past and the future are the same thing
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u/thechuckstar 11h ago
They are though... Linear time is a perception.
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u/Dr_Sus_PhD 11h ago
Regardless of your thoughts on “linear time”…. They are not the same. They are still unique points in the spacetime continuum
Put down the weed and pick up a book before you keep spouting on about things, brother
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u/thechuckstar 11h ago
All time exists simultaneously, perception "determines" the difference.
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u/Dr_Sus_PhD 11h ago
No, the difference is the point in space in which the time exists. It doesn’t matter if all time happens simultaneously, there are still defining points in spacetime that you can point to and say “it happened there”.
It doesn’t matter if it happens simultaneously. There are still different points, just instead of calling it past and future it would be coordinates.
What you’re saying is just fundamentally incorrect lol
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u/thechuckstar 9h ago
Fundamentally incorrect *to you, seeing as how there are different broadly acceptable theories, without definitive conclusions. In your opinion, would you lean more towards growing block, presentism, or block universe theory?
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u/Dr_Sus_PhD 9h ago
I’m not here to discuss different theories on the universe that you just googled.
The points I am presenting are supported by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which has real world evidence to support.
If you disagree with me, you disagree with Einstein. Which is fine, but don’t put “*to you” in there like I’m pulling this out of my ass.
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u/thechuckstar 8h ago
You were quick to accuse me of being high because I had an opinion, and you are quick to defend your position as well, so I don't understand why you're opposed to open dialogue. Many people disagree with Einstein. Bohr, Lenard, even Solovine. There's nothing inherently wrong with not agreeing on theories. I'm not an astrophysicist, but I am a casual fan of the science. Asking for your thoughts doesn't equate to being argumentative. And yes, Google is a fantastic tool since I, like you, am simply absorbing and regurgitating someone else's work, and not personally producing any meaningful information.
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u/PeterPanski85 11h ago
r/flatearth go there, you'll find like minded people there (or relentless mockery, take this as a 50/50 challenge)
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u/YouClutchh 11h ago
Always the smallest dogs..be quiet
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u/PeterPanski85 11h ago edited 11h ago
Found the flerf
Edit: because you deleted the comment ("Found the 50 year old incel").
For your info: I'm 41 🖕🏻
🤣
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u/Flying_Dutchman92 11h ago
There comes the monkey out of the sleeve. You should just go back and listen to Graham Hancock.
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u/KeeblerElff 11h ago
Quick question- how much of the Bible do you believe? Also this post led to denying the Holocaust so that’s weird
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u/KeeblerElff 11h ago
They literally correctly calculate each eclipse. Hard to deny that they can’t ‘predict the future’ it’s math
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u/Initial_Gear_7354 11h ago
Not through the milkyway, but with it