Our Place in the Universe
July 26th 2009 05:50
"Time"
When we look up in the night sky we see a myriad of stars some bright some not so bright each point of light we see is an individual star in its own right.
When we look at the stars above us you notice the expanse and perhaps wonder where we fit in.
Our system is not located in the center of the Milky Way it may seem that way but we're actually on the edge of a small spiral section band called the Orion arm.
More recent estimates place the Milky Way galaxy at 100,000 light years in diameter and perhaps 1000 light years thick. It would take a human around 100,000 years traveling at the speed of light to cross the galaxy from one to the other.
At best with current technology we can only manage around about 20,000 mph that's only a fraction of the speed of light, we would need to travel 196,000 miles per second even at this speed it would take 1300 human lifetimes to travel the galaxy end to end.
We are indeed fortunate in our current location because if we were closer to the galactic center of Milky Way we as a species would never have survived.
The galactic center of our galaxy is a very dangerous place to be in because of the massive radiation black holes and densely packed stars the radiation levels would be horrendous.
Since we on the outer edge off the Orion arm of the Milky Way we are in a position view much of our galaxy.
This just goes to show when we look at the expanse of the night sky how insignificant we are in relation to the rest of the universe.
I have included a picture of where we are in relation to the rest of the galaxy.
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