Posted on 07/26/2024 12:05:54 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars in the high and far-off constellation Cepheus. In this sharp telescopic portrait, from the core outward the galaxy's colors change from the yellowish light of old stars in the center to young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions along the loose, fragmented spiral arms. NGC 6946 is also bright in infrared light and rich in gas and dust, exhibiting a high star birth and death rate. In fact, since the early 20th century ten confirmed supernovae, the death explosions of massive stars, were discovered in NGC 6946. Nearly 40,000 light-years across, NGC 6946 is also known as the Fireworks Galaxy.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Except for the occasional galaxy floating by, there’s nothing out there.
Wouldn’t all the aliens be sliding to the bottom on their planets?....
So if we went at the max warp (warp 9.975 or 3,053 times the speed of light), we could be there in 20 million /3053 = 6551 years.
Can we use replicator machines to build new star ships to house the surplus population growth while we travel?
Assume we start with a crew of 1000 people (Enterprise was 1014 give or take a red shirt or two).
And assume we grow the population at a 1% annual growth rate (Historical human growth rate peaked at 2%). They have advanced health care, won’t run into many hostile aliens in intergalactic space, and presumably can avoid civil war.
We would arrive in 6500 years with a population after 6500 years of compound growth at 1% of ≈1.2×10^31.
And we would have built 1.2x10^28 enterprise class star ships to hold that population.
How big of an invasion force do we need for a whole galaxy?
A beautiful spiral.👍🔭
Almost as beautiful as this one... 
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