Posted on 01/08/2021 1:47:35 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax Cluster of galaxies. This impressively sharp color image shows the intense, reddish star forming regions near the ends of central bar and along the spiral arms, with details of the obscuring dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then zoom by moving the magnifying glass over an area and then clicking. The side bars will move the zoomed area over the photograph.
“Only” 60 million lt-yrs away. LOL.
To get an idea of stellar distances: If you were to put a pea on the ground to represent the size of the sun the nearest star (Proxima Centauri = 4.22 lt-yrs away) would be 125 miles away.
Place a Basketball on the ground (sun)
Pace off 85 feet
Place a BB on the ground (earth)
Place a grain of sand 2 1/2” away (moon)
How Fast Are You Moving When You Are Sitting Still?
The Earth Is spinning On It’s Axis.
How fast is it going?
Our planet rotates on its axis once a day.
The circumference of the Earth is 25,000 miles, and it rotates once every 24 hours.
A point near the equator of the Earth moves at close to 1,000 miles per hour.
The speed is a little less the farther you are north or south of the equator.
The Earth Is Orbiting The Sun.
How fast is it going?
The Earth revolves around the Sun once a year.
The center of the orbit is at about 93 million miles away,
and the full orbital path is close to 600 million miles.
To go around this immense circle in one year takes a speed of 66,000 miles per hour.
The Sun Is Moving Through Our Galaxy.
How fast is it going?
The Milky Way Galaxy is a spiral galaxy, about 100,000 light-years across,
and it contains over 200 billion stars.
The closest other star to our sun (Proxima Centauri), is 25 thousand billion miles away.
The Earth travels along with our sun through our galaxy at 483,000 miles per hour.
It takes our solar system 230 million years
to travel all the way around the Milky Way (one “galactic year”).
Since the Sun and the Earth first formed, they have circled the Galaxy 20 times.
In all of recorded human history,
we have barely moved in our long path around the Milky Way.
The Milky Way Galaxy Is Traveling Through The Universe.
How fast is it going?
The Milky Way does not sit still,
our entire Galaxy is moving through the universe at 1.3 million miles per hour.
Well, compared to the "edge" of the observable universe, which they estimate at about 14 BILLION light years, 60 million isn't so far. Lol!
For anyone who doesn't know, ONE light year, the *distance* light travels in one year, at its speed of 186,000 miles per second, works out to about 5.9 TRILLION miles.
So this thing is 60 million x 5.9 TRILLION miles away. Yet it ain't so far away in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve seen this from South Georgia, but, it’s still low on the horizon. In Australia, this is considered their ‘Andromeda galaxy’ (at least by the amateur astronomy crowd). If you scan the area around it, the sky is floating with galaxies.
The Earth is round. SPACE is actually FLAT................
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