Guess I gotta start a new one. Posted 17 March 2012 - 09:07 AM
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? Posted 23 March 2012 - 07:46 AM Posted 23 March 2012 - 07:57
AM 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. Posted 27 March 2012 - 07:54 AM 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. Posted 21 November 2012