Scale of the Andromeda Galaxy

ThunderCat

Saw this video on another website and thought it would be of interest here. Really hits home what lies within that faint smudge we see in the night sky. Amazing.

http://youtu.be/udAL48P5NJU

Rhys Essien

A Galaxy of 1 trillion stars.That sure is mind boggling.

ThunderCat

Rhys Essien wrote: »

A Galaxy of 1 trillion stars.That sure is mind boggling.

I agree, and the thing I found myself losing sight of is that despite how unbelievably dense the stars all appear to be packed together, there is still light years between each one. Granted towards the galactic core they may be half a light year or less away from each other but using our star as a typical example, our nearest neighbour is over 4 light years away from us.

Makes you wonder what Hubbles successor will be able to see.

Tefral

Genuine question here: Are humans truly able to appreciate scale like that?

I watched that video and my head nearly exploded trying to keep up with the sense of scale.

INPUT INNPUT

cronin_j wrote: »

Genuine question here: Are humans truly able to appreciate scale like that?

I watched that video and my head nearly exploded trying to keep up with the sense of scale.

No, we cant even get our heads aroud the odds of winning the lotto.

Ole Rodrigo

Posted before but a section of the Milky way.

http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

Capt'n Midnight

cronin_j wrote: »

G

A trillion stars ?

The US spends a Trillion dollars a year on security between the military and the federal agencies

The value of outstanding derivatives contracts was 71.1 Quadrillion cents at the end of 2013



see also
http://xkcd.com/980/


http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html
NB. these pictures would be 100 times worse if they used dollar bills

BULLER

ThunderCat wrote: »

I agree, and the thing I found myself losing sight of is that despite how unbelievably dense the stars all appear to be packed together, there is still light years between each one. Granted towards the galactic core they may be half a light year or less away from each other but using our star as a typical example, our nearest neighbour is over 4 light years away from us.

Makes you wonder what Hubbles successor will be able to see.

Interesting! I've often wondered if we happened to be located in a denser part of the galaxy, so that the closest star was less than half a light year away, would interstellar travel still be unimaginable without some kind of futuristic anti-matter drive?
Could a scaled up, high-powered, ~6000isp ion drive allow us to, at the very least, send probes to the neighbouring solar systems at that distance?
We're pretty unfortunate that in our local cluster, the nearest star is over 4 light years away, and the rest even further!

ThunderCat

BULLER wrote: »

Interesting! I've often wondered if we happened to be located in a denser part of the galaxy, so that the closest star was less than half a light year away, would interstellar travel still be unimaginable without some kind of futuristic anti-matter drive?
Could a scaled up, high-powered, ~6000isp ion drive allow us to, at the very least, send probes to the neighbouring solar systems at that distance?
We're pretty unfortunate that in our local cluster, the nearest star is over 4 light years away, and the rest even further!

I think even half a light year away is bridge too far for us at our current point of technological capabilities given the fact that the voyager 1 probe, which is the probe furthest away from us and launched in the 70's, is a mere 18 light hours from earth. But in the future who knows. A hundred years ago it was generally thought that our galaxy was the entire universe as other galaxies were being misidentified as nebula. Fast forward to today and we have a space telescope resolving individual stars in a neighbouring galaxy thats over 2 million light years away. Who knows what we will be capable of a hundred years from now

Capt'n Midnight

ThunderCat wrote: »

I think even half a light year away is bridge too far for us at our current point of technological capabilities given the fact that the voyager 1 probe, which is the probe furthest away from us and launched in the 70's, is a mere 18 light hours from earth. But in the future who knows.

In the past it's taken hundreds of years to complete some cathedrals.

And as you say Voyager is 3/4 of a light day away.

On a related note New Horizons should be getting back to work this week after an extended break.

slade_x

Source:

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-high-definition-panoramic-view-of-the-andromeda-galaxy/#.VLkTykeUcTo

If anyone is interested in a new desktop:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/02/

largest TIFF up to 17384 X 5558 pixels
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/02/image/a/warn/