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See the original image at badastronomy.com

Ten things you don’t know about the Milky Way Galaxy

badastronomy.com — So you ’ve lived here all your life - in fact, everyone has - but what do you really know about the Milky Way galaxy? Sure, you know it’s a spiral, and it’s 100,000 light years across. And of course, you're smarter, more well-read, and better looking than the average population, but be honest: do you know all ten of these things?

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  • fodbirdy, on 03/13/2008, -10/+62*****
    • BadAstronomer, on 03/13/2008, -1/+26Easy for you to say.
    • 0260, on 03/13/2008, -2/+11It left me speechless too. Phil you da man!
    • paperclipsNsoup, on 03/13/2008, -3/+1I just don't know what to say
    • GhandicapXRS, on 03/13/2008, -8/+3Best comment ever... Dugg
    • MWeather, on 03/13/2008, -1/+4Took the words right out of my mouth.
    • SpacePoet, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3There is too much space in that comment...
    • IrisMR, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1I can only reply with a dot!

      .
    • designerutah, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1It's still not as impressive as a Gnab Gib!
  • BigManOnCampus, on 03/13/2008, -2/+6The only one I didn't already know was #9 :)

    My understanding was that Andromeda was 150% of our galaxy's mass, has that changed? Where is the research that has altered that thinking? I've always been under the understanding that Andromeda was going to "win" the collision.
    • BadAstronomer, on 03/13/2008, -0/+6They keep swapping back and forth. :-) It's hard to measure the mass of a galaxy, especially one that is 1) so close like Andromeda and 2) when you're inside one. :-) I actually don't know what the absolute current state-of-the art mass of the two galaxies are; I'm going by what i heard last. Science is contingent!
      • BigManOnCampus, on 03/13/2008, -0/+9Well, I would like to think that my galaxy is bigger. Purely for ego reasons. :)
        • paperclipsNsoup, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3I'm going to agree... For ego reasons
          • ostracize, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2I'm going to assume the earth is the center of the solar system...for ego reasons.
    • staxofmax, on 03/13/2008, -1/+5I believe the current view is that the Milky Way is more massive because it has much more dark matter than Andromeda. Also, Andromeda is in the middle of a phase of rapid star formation which gives it the illusion of being more massive than the Milky Way, which is in a comparatively quiet phase at the moment.
    • Razyael, on 03/13/2008, -0/+7It increased in mass by approximately 32% with the addition of Kevin Sorbo.
      • richbleak, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3Are you trying to promote Kevin Sorbo as the new Chuck Norris? If so, I'm in. After all, the guy is the son of a god.
  • MiraiLindemann, on 03/13/2008, -1/+3All this is something SO beautiful to think, btw I didn't knew we are getting closer to Andromeda. Milky way is marvelous, such a pretty place but now I have a question:
    Being in the "galactic suburbs" makes us being on a safer place also?
    • ToMZiLLA, on 03/13/2008, -1/+7Until dark galaxies move in!

      zing
      • ApokalypseNow, on 03/13/2008, -1/+6*grumble* Can't trust them black holes...

        Sorry, I couldn't resist.
    • SpacePoet, on 03/13/2008, -2/+4I always wanted to be alive in say a billion years from now and see the Andromeda Galaxy looming 10 times the size of the moon in the night sky barreling toward the Milky Way, what a sight that will be...
      • Synova, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2Imagine how much different human mythology would be if we evolved during a time period with 3 great celestial bodies in the sky.
  • copaceticZ, on 03/13/2008, -5/+26This all makes me feel horribly insignificant.......god damn being alive is freaking weird. I'd prefer not to think about it i guess.
    • theHM, on 03/13/2008, -1/+7Now start thinking about what consciousness is and where your "inner voice" comes from, and you'll tip over into insanity.
      • teh_techie, on 03/13/2008, -5/+3You're right... they're pretty tough to contemplate. Just don't think too hard or you might need to satisfy the gap with.. RELIGION *GASP!!*
    • MCMLXXXII, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2I can imagine why the Total Perspective Vortex could be such a horrible torture device.
    • MaruLono, on 03/13/2008, -1/+4you shouldn't watch "the universe" on the history channel then... it blows your mind
    • SpacePoet, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3When you think about the honor to be alive in such a vast universe, the honor of being an intelligent species, the honor of being alive at a time of technological advancement's, it eases the pain of loneliness and the knowledge that we just are here, spinning freely. The sad part is what we are doing to it.
    • RayG68, on 03/17/2008, -0/+2By probability we are far from the only intelligence in our galaxy, much less the universe. Check out Laurence Krauss' book Beyond Star Trek, i think is the title.
      • SpacePoet, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1In the current time frame, you're probably right. If time didn't matter, I might disagree...
  • RevChris, on 03/13/2008, -4/+5anyone got some copy/paste love for those of us where bad astronomy is work filtered
    • remotecontempt, on 03/13/2008, -3/+341) It’s a barred spiral.
      You might know that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, perhaps the most beautiful galaxy type. You’ve seen ‘em: majestic arms sweeping out from a central hub or bulge of glowing stars. That’s us. But a lot of spirals have a weird feature: a rectangular block of stars at the center instead of a sphere, and the arms radiate away from the ends of the block. Astronomers call this block a bar, and, you guessed it: we have one.
      Is fact, ours is pretty big. At 27,000 light years end-to-end, it’s beefier than most bars. Of course, space is a rough neighborhood. Who wouldn’t want a huge bar located right downtown?

      2) There’s a supermassive black hole at its heart.
      At the very center of the Galaxy, right at its very core, lies a monster: a supermassive black hole.
      We know it’s there due to the effect of its gravity. Stars very near the center — some only a few dozen billion kilometers out — orbit the center at fantastic speeds. They scream around their orbits at thousands of kilometers per second, and their phenomenal speed betrays the mass of the object to which they’re enthralled. Applying some fairly basic math, it’s possible to determine that the mass needed to accelerate the stars to those speeds must tip the cosmic scales at four million times the mass of the Sun! Yet in the images, nothing can be seen. So what can be as massive as 4,000,000 Suns and yet not emit any light?
      Right. A black hole.
      Even though it’s huge, bear in mind that the Galaxy itself is something like 200 billion solar masses strong, so in reality the black hole at the center is only a tiny fraction of the total mass of the Galaxy. And we’re in no danger of plunging into it: after all, it’s 250,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers away.
      It’s thought now that a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy forms along with the galaxy itself, and in facts winds blown outward as material falls in affects the formation of stars in the galaxy. So black holes may be dangerous, but it’s entirely possible the Sun’s eventual birth — and the Earth’s along with it — may have been lent a hand by the four million solar mass killer so far away.

      3) It’s a cannibal.
      Galaxies are big, and have lots of mass. If another, smaller galaxy passes too close by, the bigger galaxy can rip it to shreds and ingest its stars and gas.
      Illustration of the Milky Way tearing apart the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxyThe Milky Way is pretty, but it’s savage, too. It’s currently eating several other galaxies. They’ve been ripped into long, curving arcs of stars that orbit the center of the Milky Way. Eventually they’ll merge completely with us, and we’ll be a slightly larger galaxy. Ironically though, the galaxies add their mass to ours, making it more likely we’ll feed again. Eating only makes galaxies hungrier.

      4) We live in a nice neighborhood…
      The Milky Way is not alone in space. We’re part of a small group of nearby galaxies called — get ready to be shocked — the Local Group. We’re the heaviest guy on the block, and the Andromeda galaxy is maybe a bit less massive, though it’s actually spread out more. The Triangulum galaxy is also a spiral, but not terribly big, and there are other assorted galaxies dotted here and there in the Group. All together, there are something like three dozen galaxies in the Local Group, with most being dinky dwarf galaxies that are incredibly faint and difficult to detect.

      5) … and we’re in the suburbs.
      The Local Group is small and cozy, and everyone makes sure their lawns are mowed and houses painted nicely. That’s because if you take the long view, we live in the suburbs. The big city in this picture is the Virgo Cluster, a huge collection of about 2000 galaxies, many of which are as large or larger than the Milky Way. It’s the nearest big cluster; the center of it is about 60 million light years away. We appear to be gravitationally bound to it; in other words, we’re a part of it, just far-flung. The total mass of the cluster may be as high as a quadrillion times the mass of the Sun.

      6) You can only see 0.000003% percent of it.
      When you got out on a dark night, you can see thousands of stars. But the Milky Way has two hundred billion stars in it. You’re only seeing a tiny tiny fraction of the number of stars tooling around the galaxy. In fact, with only a handful of exceptions, the most distant stars you can readily see are 1000 light years away. Worse, most stars are so faint that they are invisible much closer than that; the Sun is too dim to see from farther than about 60 light years away… and the Sun is pretty bright compared to most stars. So the little bubble of stars we can see around us is just a drop in the ocean of the Milky Way.

      7) 90% of it is invisible.
      When you look at the motions of the stars in our galaxy, you can apply some math and physics and determine how much mass the galaxy has (more mass means more gravity, which means stars will move faster under its influence). You can also count up the number of stars in the galaxy and figure out how much mass they have. Problem is, the two numbers don’t match: stars (and other visible things like gas and dust) make up only 10% of the mass of the galaxy. Where’s the other 90%?
      Image of the Bullet Cluster, the first direct evidence of Dark MatterWhatever it is, it has mass, but doesn’t glow. So we call it Dark Matter, for lack of a better term (and it’s actually pretty accurate). We know it’s not black holes, dead stars, ejected planets, cold gas — those have all been searched for, and marked off the list — and the candidates that remain get pretty weird (like WIMPs). But we know it’s real, and we know it’s out there. We just don’t know what it is. Smart people are trying to figure that out, and given the findings in recent years, I bet we’re less than a decade from their success.

      8) Spiral arms are an illusion.
      Well, they’re not an illusion per se, but the number of stars in the spiral arms of our galaxy isn’t really very different than the number between the arms! The arms are like cosmic traffic jams, regions where the local density is enhanced. Like a traffic jam on a highway, cars enter and leave the jam, but the jam itself stays. The arms have stars entering and leaving, but the arms themselves persist (that’s why they don’t wind up like twine on a spindle).
      Just like on highways, too, there are fender benders. Giant gas clouds can collide in the arms, which makes them collapse and form stars. The vast majority of these stars are faint, low mass, and very long-lived, so they eventually wander out of the arms. But some rare stars are very massive, hot, and bright, and they illuminate the surrounding gas. These stars don’t live very long, and they die (bang!) before they can move out of the arms. Since the gas clouds in the arms light up this way, it makes the spiral arms more obvious.
      We see the arms because the light is better there, not because that’s where all the stars are.

      9) It’s seriously warped.
      The Milky Way is a flat disk roughly 100,000 light years across and a few thousand light years thick (depending on how you measure it). It has the same proportion as a stack of four DVDs, if that helps.
      Have you ever left a DVD out in the Sun? It can warp as it heats up, getting twisted (old vinyl LPs used to be very prone to this). The Milky Way has a similar warp!
      Image of the Andromeda galaxy with the middle blocked so you can see the warpThe disk is bent, warped, probably due to the gravitational influence of a pair of orbiting satellite galaxies. One side of the disk is bent up, if you will, and the other down. In a sense, it’s like a ripple in the plane of the Milky Way. It’s not hard to spot in other galaxies; grab an image of the Andromeda galaxy and take a look. At first it’s hard to see, but if you cover the inner part you’ll suddenly notice the disk is flared up on the left and down on the right. Andromeda has satellite galaxies too, and they warp its disk just like our satellite galaxies warp ours.
      As far as I can tell, the warp doesn’t really affect us at all. It’s just a cool thing you may not know about the Milky Way. Hey, that would make a good blog entry!

      10) We’re going to get to know the Andromeda galaxy a lot better.
      Speaking of Andromeda, have you ever seen it in the sky? It’s visible to the naked eye on a clear, dark, moonless night (check your local listings). It’s faint, but big; it’s four or more degrees across, eight times the apparent size of the Moon on the sky.
      If that doesn’t seem too big, then give it, oh, say, two billion years. Then you’ll have a much better view.
      The Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are approaching each other, two cosmic steam engines chugging down the tracks at each other at 200 kilometers per second. Remember when I said big galaxies eat small ones? Well, when two big galaxies smack into each other, you get real fireworks. Stars don’t physically collide; they’re way too small on this scale. But gas clouds can, and like I said before, when they do they form stars. So you get a burst of star formation, lighting up the two galaxies.
      Hubble image of The Antennae, two colliding galaxiesIn the meantime, the mutual gravity of the two galaxies draw out long tendrils from the other, making weird, delicate arcs and filaments of stars and gas. It’s beautiful, really, but it indicates violence on an epic scale.
      Eventually (it takes a few billion years), the two galaxies will merge, and will become, what, Milkomeda? Andromeway? Well, whatever, they form a giant elliptical galaxy when they finally settle down. In fact, the Sun will still be around when this happens; it won’t have yet become a red giant. Will our descendants witness the biggest collision in the history of the galaxy?
      That’s cool to think about. Incidentally, I talk about this event a whole lot more, and in a lot more detail, in my upcoming book Death from the Skies! In case you forgot about that.

      Until then, these Ten Things should keep you occupied. And of course, I only wanted to list ten things so I could give this post the cool title. But if there’s something you find surprising about the Milky Way, leave a comment! I don’t want to hog all the fun.
    • strictnein, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2Bad Astronomy is filtered but digg isn't? Strange.
    • ostracize, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3RevChris, as in Rev. Chris? They block badastronomy at work?
  • raymondmarble, on 03/13/2008, -0/+6Always a great site, I'm looking forward to his new book.
  • trytoremember, on 03/13/2008, -1/+2Phil does a great job revealing the cosmic scale by explaining "local neighborhood"! It really is difficult to wrap the human brain around these numbers. It helped me to consider the 9 years it will take the New Horizons spacecraft traveling at 23 k/s or 51000 mph to reach Pluto in our own solar system! The cosmic grandeur always recreates in me a sense of watching "the greatest show on earth!" Thanks to "the bad astronomer" for his effort, I am anxious to read his new book!
  • BadAstronomer, on 03/13/2008, -2/+5Work filtered? Why? Is it my sometimes opinionated pieces, or you just have a strict boss about blogs and such?
    • krets, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Stupid Websense. It categorizes it as "Message Boards or Forums" and most of those are blocked here. I have no idea how Digg remains unblocked. Thank goodness for proxies. :)
      • surKaz, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Same here... Everything's blocked.. Fortunately not Digg.
        • krets, on 03/13/2008, -0/+9I think IT leaves Digg unblocked just to taunt us.

          "Here, see what you COULD be reading right now."
          • surKaz, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Dang!.. You're right, time to give IT a taste of what's coming to them..
            Maybe some chocolates or something to bribe them..
            No violence. Then I'd be cut-off of everything..
    • paperclipsNsoup, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1The only thing blocked here (My work) is MySpace... Good...
      • surKaz, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1And that's a bad thing?.. I see you're glad...
  • Zoshchenko, on 03/13/2008, -1/+28This puts things into a whole new - and I think better - perspective. Everything we do is so, what's the word, temporary? Transient? If we're "lucky" we live 80 or so years. On the cosmic scale, that can't even be measured. Heck, the history of humanity is only a tiny blip, and one day there won't be anyone around to even know we ever existed.
    OK, I'm done. Got to go back to earning some money so I can put gas in my car and drive home after work to watch TV.
    • surKaz, on 03/13/2008, -0/+5Yep, stuff like that is what makes me stop and think sometimes... But then I go back to playing videogames and watching TV.
    • chewbacca77, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4That strikes me as a very Calvin & Hobbes like thing to say.
  • kingofinternet, on 03/13/2008, -4/+6It is not made out of milk.

    hyuk
  • hawk0168, on 03/13/2008, -4/+2Down
  • tmedesign, on 03/13/2008, -1/+3http://www.duggmirror.com
  • Mdog011, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4im still waiting for a top 10 things that i didnt know about life
  • imightbewrong, on 03/13/2008, -5/+7The snickers galaxy is way better
    OMG JUST KIDDIN'
  • slvrbullet87, on 03/13/2008, -2/+3One thing i know about Badastronomy, by the time i see it on the front page the site will be down.
  • tman84, on 03/13/2008, -3/+10Bad Astronomy isn't just sure about these ten things, their HIV Positive
    • FMDC, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4You mean "they're". That's pretty HIV negative of you.
    • paperclipsNsoup, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3Lol, I watched South Park last night too
      • strictnein, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Yeah. Surprised at the content for a little bit, but then I realized that their point is that people seem to be forgetting about AIDS and the only cure for it is more research which equals more funding.
        At least, that's what I took from it. Of course, I could just be reading a little too much into it.
    • Mossman85, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1The digg comment buttons should now be HIV positive for up and negative for down.
  • o0joshua0o, on 03/13/2008, -3/+1OMG the Andromeda galaxy is heading straight for us!!! We are ****ed.
  • jutendouji, on 03/13/2008, -2/+2That was a really cool read, actually. Dugg.
  • daxsymbiont, on 03/13/2008, -3/+5it ***** me off when a title assumes what you do or don't know but anyway,

    "6) You can only see 0.000003% percent of it."

    this is interesting.
  • robbiedo, on 03/13/2008, -2/+4I knew nearly all those factoids about the Milky Way. Yeah, it's time for me to get a new girlfriend.
    • Farik, on 03/13/2008, -0/+7New would imply that you already have one, obviously this is not the case.
    • Logicexe, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3Is your right hand not doing it for you anymore?
  • maxlightz, on 03/13/2008, -11/+2Title should read: "10 things about the Milky Way Galaxy I don't give a ***** about" because it is so far beyond my puny existence that it serves no purpose for me to know it.
    • nate94gt, on 03/13/2008, -6/+0this is true. and how the fack is a light year a measure of distance?! neither a light or a year is a distance, but magically a light year becomes length?!
      • strictnein, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4Are you serious?
        Guess what (Distance / time) * time equals? Distance.
        299,792,458 m/s (the speed of light) * 31556926 seconds (1 Year's worth of seconds) = A Light Year
      • eouw0o83hf, on 03/13/2008, -0/+01 Light Year = Distance that light travels in 1 Year. Light year is a measure of distance, just like parsec (even though the Millenium Falcon made the Kessel run in less than 12 of them).

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_year
      • IrisMR, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1Distance light travels in a year you stupid ape cretin.
    • paperclipsNsoup, on 03/13/2008, -0/+2Then don't read it
    • eouw0o83hf, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Yeah, why would I ever want to know something about the universe in which I exist? What if people had said that centuries ago? "Sure, Galileo thinks that the earth isn't flat. But what does it matter, it doesn't serve me any purpose. It is of no consequence either way." Keep in mind that many modern conveniences (tv, phones, radio, interwebz, gps, weather tracking, etc.) are based on satellites which wouldn't be there if humanity hadn't wondered about things that were previously out of our reach. However, by striving for more knowledge, we have furthered the species and gained a better knowledge of the universe in which we live. If you don't want to learn, be my guest; it's your choice. But, thankfully, there are people out there who are curious about things which are out of our current reach, but could be of tremendous scientific/humanitarian value someday.
    • IrisMR, on 03/13/2008, -1/+0Oh yea, because knowledge is so useless.

      Nothing will change your life in this list, that's right. But at least knowing a bit of cool scientific facts helps making you cultured and not just a stupid retard that spends his life masturbating in his basement while typing pessimistic ***** no one gives a crap about.
  • DaveMN, on 03/13/2008, -1/+12If you like this stuff, be sure to check out the TV series "The Universe".
    http://www.history.com/minisite.do?mini_id=54036

    One interesting tidbit that I remember:
    The number of stars visible from earth are equivalent to looking at the population of the US, but only being able to see 50 people.
  • Lanefair, on 03/13/2008, -7/+5#11 100% Of its inhabitants are ***** idiots.
    • FlashBazbo, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1We knew that.
    • theHM, on 03/13/2008, -1/+11We represent one planet in one system; don't assume other species are idiotic, too.
    • IrisMR, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1I had no idea you met alien races.
    • dkern, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1Actually less than 1% are idiots- we are cannibals just like they said (sarcasm)
  • atomicwedgie, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4Love the way it was written which kept it somewhat interesting even for my wife. :p
  • miakeru, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3You'd think this site would get a more robust hosting option by now. They're on the front page a couple of times a week.
  • retardrus, on 03/13/2008, -2/+18jokes on you guys earth is only 5k years old
    • MrRuslan, on 03/13/2008, -3/+3I hope that's sarcasm...
    • Killerah, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1How does that have to do with anything talked about in this article?
  • silencio911, on 03/13/2008, -1/+0wow
  • Sharky35, on 03/13/2008, -6/+1But I already know all those things???
    Seriously!
  • xen0blue, on 03/13/2008, -5/+1bitches don't know bout my milky way
  • tubeguy, on 03/13/2008, -3/+0They forgot that, counter-intuitively, the outer part of the galaxy is moving faster than the inner part.
    • eouw0o83hf, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1Maybe if it were a post entitled "10 Things You Don't Know About Basic Physics"
      • antipoet, on 03/13/2008, -1/+2Wouldn't basic physics suggest that the outer moves slower than the inner?
  • SpacePoet, on 03/13/2008, -2/+5I always wanted to be alive in say a billion years from now and see the Andromeda Galaxy looming 10 times the size of the moon in the night sky barreling toward the Milky Way, what a sight that will be...
    • trieste, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1Not really. The milky way is not that impressive to look at and neither will the Andromeda galaxy. Depending on the angle of 'collision' we may not even notice as the two galaxies pass through each other. It would make watching a forest grow seem like an instantaneous event.
  • eouw0o83hf, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1I enjoyed the article much, it was quite informative and I learned a few facts.
    However I fail to see how it is ironic that, once one galaxy consumes another, it adds the consumed galaxy's mass to itself, then eats more galaxies. Seems more fitting or logical than ironic.
  • donkeySays, on 03/13/2008, -1/+1In Grade 2, we were told about the Milky Way Galaxy by our Science teacher. He described it something like "a patch of stars looking like spilt milk on the floor". I used to look for the bright WHITE patch in the night sky every night however impossible it sounded to me, with no success whatsoever. After many unsuccessful nights, one day I decided to gave it up wondering maybe I don't have the power to see the Milky Way Galaxy, the patch of stars looking like spilt milk on the floor.
  • Axias, on 03/13/2008, -6/+1MIT proved we're not actually part of the milky way, but actually part of one of those smaller galaxies being 'cannibalized' by it. Interesting fact, in 2012 we'll be at the EXACT CENTER of the milky way (counting pleaides as the center), which is when the 'reset' switch turns on for the mayan calendar. Unlikely anything will happen, but it will take 1/4 of a billion years before we loop around to the other side..
    • CapitalPro, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1citation?
    • Bleahdom, on 03/13/2008, -0/+4We're currently on the edge but by 2012 we'll be near the centre? You've found the secret to faster than light travel haven't you?
  • Thundercat1971, on 03/13/2008, -0/+3Its filled with Nougat. What more do you need to know?
  • designerutah, on 03/13/2008, -1/+2To put it all into perspective, remember that the dimmest part of the night sky, when photographed in a photograph that looked deep, found more than 10,000 Galaxies in that small image. Imagine if you did that for the entire sky. Hundreds of millions or even billions of Galaxies!
    • InsaneOni, on 03/13/2008, -1/+2...and that part of the sky they photographed was WAY less than 1 degree in diameter...crazy stuff. Anyone who thinks we're alone as biological entities in this universe is just plain dumb.
  • markgl, on 03/13/2008, -1/+2now i can act like i know what i'm talking about.
  • mvk25, on 03/13/2008, -0/+1thinking about the universe and our existence can really blow your mind away!
    • joshuabowers, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2Not if you are Zaphod Beeblebrox!
  • pwdrskier, on 03/14/2008, -0/+2this is really cool stuff, makes you wonder whats out there. I knew most of it due to a cool show on the History Channel called the Universe. check it out, its pretty cool
  • Dr0x, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1I don't know how accurate this really is but the comparison between a stack of 4 DVDs actually helped me understand the idea behind how our universe is considered flat.
    • trieste, on 03/14/2008, -0/+1"how our universe is considered flat" - galaxy. The universe is flat in a whole different way.
  •  

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