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Topic: Calling all big heads who know the trivial information about the our g< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
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PersonGuy Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,00:49  Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Hey, I got three question for you guys, cause I can't seem to find the answer anywhere.

#1) How big is the milkey way? Preferably, how wide is it in light years?

#2) How many stars are in the milky way?

#3) What is the speed of light (in miles per second)?

It's pretty important... THANKS!

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-PersonGuy

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chmod Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,00:58 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
quote:
Originally posted by PersonGuy:

#1) How big is the milkey way? Preferably, how wide is it in light years?

#2) How many stars are in the milky way?

#3) What is the speed of light (in miles per second)?

this is the best I can do:

1) very big

2) a lot.

3) 186,000 miles per second.

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incubus Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,01:53 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
I could look this shit up, but I'm sure CK/DKB could spout it off the top o' their heads, so I'll wait.

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CatKnight Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,03:15 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
the radius of the central disk of the milky way is ~60,000 light years.

the radius of the galatic halo is ~300,000 light years.

there are ~10^12 stars in the milky way

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Rhydant Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,04:51 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
1 trillion stars? are you sure? i thought there were a hole lot more...
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Spydir Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,12:07 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
TLC had this kick ass show on a while ago called "hyperspace", and they gave a totally kickass way of understanding how many stars are in our galaxy. Imagine going to the beach, and picking up a handful of sand. How many grains of sand are in that handful? Few hundred thousand? Maybe a million? Imagine how many handfuls of sand are at that beach. That's how many stars are in our galaxy.

Well... it was either in our galaxy or something like that, I was going between watching the show and throwing the new puppy around. And no, it's not animal crulity, it's training!

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Hellraiser Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,12:20 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Hmm. When I was in school, the width of the milkyway was roughly 100,000 light years, with an estimated 100,000,000,000 stars. Its actually a decent sized spiral galaxy as they go, though our closest spiral neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy is a bit larger at 200,000 light years and an estimated 400,000,000,000 stars in it. Our two closest galaxies, almost ugly twins of the Milkyway are the Magellanic clouds.

These figures being estimates are in constant revision as more exact means of estimating based on evidence are found. Currently, the figure for the Milkyway's population of stars has in some circles been increased to roughly 400 billion, but I've never heard the 1 trillion figure before. I've also heard estimates of 120-175,000 lightyears for the diameter, but never 600,000 lightyears (twice a radius of 300,000) even relating to the galactic Halo, which is usually put at 130,000 light years when related to the 100,000 light year figure. That would put the galactic halo extending beyond both the magellanic clouds which are about 200,000 lightyears out.

None of these figures are exact, because they cannot be measured directly using our current methods and astronomical knowledge. Distances and sizes and numbers are based on statistical analysis of the areas around us that we know with greater precision, applied to areas we know with lesser precision. In other words, its a lot of guesses built on top of each other and checked against each other for accuracy. If they don't contradict, we figure they're accurate, and error margins are measured by the degrees of difference between various methods of arriving at the figures that somewhat contradict.

Edit: I found this site -
http://community.silverlink.net/celestial/astronomy/proj/milkyway/milkyway.htm

has some details that are kind of interesting, it is written by school kids for school kids, but the data is pretty accurate to what I learned in school. They also give some descriptions of things in the FAQ.

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This message has been edited by Hellraiser on October 28, 2001 at 10:39 AM

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LazyGit Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,13:16 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Why do you want to know PersonGuy, going for a jog?
cheers
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EvilGenius Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,17:23 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/mw
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veistran Search for posts by this member.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 27 2001,20:55 Skip to the previous post in this topic.  Ignore posts   QUOTE
the weird thing about that hyperspace show was it seemed like they were trying to scare the pants of the avg viewer.
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