What is Digg?90 Comments
- inactive, on 06/05/2008, -1/+36That's not the top view. That's the bottom view!
- inactive, on 06/05/2008, -1/+33How can you tell top from bottom in space?
- MacGuy88, on 06/05/2008, -3/+20There's gotta be life out there.... somewhere...
- Aero1, on 06/05/2008, -1/+17quick, someone send this map to Admiral Adama
- Soriven, on 06/05/2008, -4/+17Milkay... Galactic Bar.... Om nom nom nom
- Sazafraz, on 06/05/2008, -0/+12Here's the same image without the grid
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09 ... - Chrino, on 06/05/2008, -0/+12Google has a new challenge. Google Milky Way. A fully explorable Milky Way.
- mikedub1219, on 06/05/2008, -1/+11scutum...haha
- BTraina, on 06/05/2008, -4/+13mmm, space revolves around our sun.
- vjeko, on 06/05/2008, -0/+8Where's Qo'noS?
- steveoco, on 06/05/2008, -0/+7Can someone explain to me what the big orange mass in the center is? I am just curious and a simple answer will do.
- stvanchimo, on 06/05/2008, -0/+7there's most likely a black hole in the middle of it, and the stars of the galaxy are spiraling toward the center. it's so bright in the center there because there are just a whole bunch of stars fairly close together.
- DarkSpartan, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6Towards the center of the galaxy is a feature called the "galactic bulge." This area is full of yellow-orange stars which are older than most of the bright-blue ones in the galaxy. From a profile perspective of the Milky Way, imagine two sunny-side-up fried eggs stuck together back-to-back. The egg yolks represent the bulge. Because of the presence of a supermassive black hole, many of the orbits of these stars are high-speed and erratic.
- hacman, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6Turn your monitor over
- jalaram, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6Where's the "You are here" sign?
- inactive, on 06/05/2008, -1/+6Same way you can tell the Arctic is at the top of the world.
- xekko, on 06/05/2008, -0/+5It's called Celestia: http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
- XIUgraag, on 06/05/2008, -0/+5What is the center of infinite? Anything, so even I'm the center of the universe :)
- jamesweston, on 06/05/2008, -6/+10Will it blend
- SirTheGuy, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4I love how it looks like we've explored a great amount of the galaxy, when in reality we know very little about our own backyard!
This is a really cool picture, though! - directive0, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4Dugg for not spelling it "kronos".
- stvanchimo, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4pretty much all the stuff in the universe goes in the same rotational direction (except for Uranus, no kidding) which, by convention, we say is counter-clockwise when viewed from the "top". yes, the "top" is the northern part of the celestial sphere. I saw a picture much like this one showing our galaxy rotating clockwise in my Astronomy class years ago. when I pointed it out to the professor, his response was, "I was wondering if you could tell me: Is anal-retentive spelled with a hyphen?" It turns out it is.
- HorseloverFat8, on 06/05/2008, -1/+5It eases my mind to see I'm not the only one to find that funny.
- lampiaio, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4We'll find out when we collide with Andromeda
- trapper007, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3With at least 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe one would think so!
Put it this way - thats more than 10,000 billion stars per person on earth... - ELee, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3The galactic bulge has the majority of the stars in our galaxy (maybe 90%). If we could see it, it would be about as bright in the sky as the Moon. But it is hidden behind the dust that is in the plane of the galaxy. A lot of the darkness in the sky is due to dust blocking starlight, not the lack of stars. The infrared images from the Spitzer space telescope can see through a lot of that dust. Most of the stars toward the center are old stars without many heavy elements, and would not be expected to have rocky planets like the Earth.
By the way, humanity has been broadcasting strong radio signals into space since the 1930's, so those signals have gone about 75 light years into space. Theoretically, aliens within 75 light years could have detected those signals. But on the scale of this map, that region of space is very small - smaller than the size of the dot above the "i" in "Orion". Only a tiny part of the galaxy could have detected our radio signals so far.
Image from Spitzer IR telescope looking toward the center of the Galaxy
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080605.html - rsHoratio, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3So where is the great barrier?
- jsd8cc, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3These might help:
http://www.ucip.org/science/newmaps/quadrants.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Star_trek_map2 ... - jemka, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3You are here.
- Fordi, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3Hm... So, right-hand rule.
Really, it's all arbitrary anyway. - lordmetroid, on 06/05/2008, -3/+7Whoops, this map became dated way too fast http://digg.com/space/The_Milky_Way_Gets_a_Facelif ...
- kneeki, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3Yep!
I don't remember which episode on 'The Universe' but they explained how they figured it out. However, I'm sure that this image is an artists creation, and not an actual image taken of our universe. Of course there are ways of accurately figuring out stuff like the largest stars, gases and so forth to make it as accurate as they can -
This is not an image taken by a satellite, but still awesome! - FUR10N, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3I wish I had a bigger monitor so I could see it full screen.
- Arcesius, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3We'll still spend most of our time browsing it for topless chicks.
- MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2How do you tell that the Arctic is at the top of the world?
- JAFFA, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2I thought we were further out! As Monty says: '..An outer spiral arm...'
- jayzeus, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Watch the delta quadrant, people!
- Fordi, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2"What is the center of infinite? Anything, so even I'm the center of the universe :)"
Given that all objects in the the universe orbit asynchronously, I would guess that the center of the universe would be the point at which nothing observable has a statistically significant orbital wobble (that is, local wobbles within the orbital path of the observable are acceptable, like planets that wobble in relationship to their stellar orbits - but it's not statistically significant in relationship to their galactic orbits, for example). - jsd8cc, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Not necessarily. Any planet near the center would just have many more/brighter/larger stars in the sky than we do.
It's more like we're in the suburbs, and the planets near the center are in the city.
And stvanchimo is right, most scientists believe there is a supermassive black hole at the center (just like every other galaxy). - batmanz, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Dugg down for not having a big dot saying "you are here"
- edwartica, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2your waxing your modem, trying to make it go faster.
- edwartica, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Hey, look, the Borg are still in the Delta quadrant at this time in history.
- edwartica, on 06/05/2008, -1/+3no, its your mom....
Yo momma's so fat that the entire galaxy rotates around her! - Rapax, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1You're right. That observation is actually more valuable thatn most people would guess. Some (not all) similar principles working on both to create that shape.
- jacanfield, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I always thought we were on the outer edges of our galaxy. According to this graphic, there two more arms between us end of our galaxy. Was I really that misinformed all this time, or has our understanding and vision of our galaxy changed?
- StaticThunder, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1XIUgraag is correct.
What is the center of the surface of a sphere? What is the center of the edge of a circle?
Since there is no edge, all points are equally distant from it.
You might be able to define a center of mass (@Fordi), or center of revolution, but thats not the geometric center of the space. - Auryn, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1Mmm. Milky Way Midnight.
- danimals, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1How does one take a picture, make an illustration, from a perspective that is not available to us?
- Rapax, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1It's defined as follows:
When you're positioned looking directly at one of the rotational poles, you're above the north pole if the object is rotating counter-clockwise from your point of view. -
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