Which direction is Earth Travelling Through Space

originally posted by: antiguaEstrella
Ermmm, no.

NSEW are aspects of a magnetic pole, with two ends. We have dictated one specifically as North, the other south. Then, East and West are 90 degrees from either end.

Yes, our solar system is planar. But, that does not note alignment with anything else outside of the solar system.

A plane does not have up or down, left or right, NSEW.

Forget magnetic north and south; it's more of a geographic thing. Astronomers have an agreed-upon nomenclature for talking about directions in tyhe solar system. and even in the galaxy (in general). "North" in the galaxy is the direction above the galactic disk in the general direction "above" our solar system ("above" being if you looked down on the solar system, you would be looking a the Northern hemispheres of the planets). Granted, the solar system id inclined about 60 degrees from the galactic disk, but on general, the "north" direction of the solar system points toward the north of the galaxy.

The Sun has a Northern hemisphere and a southern hemisphere, but they are also not related to "magnetic north" and "magnetic south". That's because magnetic north and magnetic south of the Sun changes every few years. About every 11 years, the Sun's magnetic poles flip, or reverse, so what was once magnetic north a few years ago is now magnetic south.

So in the case of the Sun, and in the case of the galaxy, the words "North" and "South" are meant as geographical directions, not magnetic poles.

Here's a little graphic to help people visualise this:



This could be applied to any rotating system in space, including the Solar System or even the whole galaxy. Rotating counter-clockwise (which is what the Earth, the Solar System, and even our galaxy do) means travelling East.

Of course, there's no real up and down in space, so if you "flip" the Solar System or the galaxy around, they will appear to spin clockwise, thus making stuff travel West.

But that's because all the directions talked about in this thread are relative.

Ok for a direction easiest to say towards vega. We will always be traveling towards vega so at least you can get an idea on Google maps. And we'll since discussing this who better to teach us then the all knowing monty python.

Eat something nutritious before you go out.

Don't the wings of Laniakea look like an arc of plasma on the Sun? And like a bubble on a sphere surface maybe

originally posted by: jjkenobi
It's more a question of which direction is our sun headed, right? All the planets are tagging along that guy.

It's more a question of which direction is our galaxy headed, right? All the solar systems are tagging along that guy.

a reply to: ImmortalLegend527

NESW are all terms relative to the Earth and its direction of rotation on its axis. There is simply no concept of 'direction' in 'space'.

To have such a concept, you need an agreed concept of 'here', 'there', 'up', 'down', 'left', 'right', etc, that applies throughout space-time. Since these things are all relative to what ever reference frame is randomly chosen at any particular time, there can be no consistent concept of North, South, East, West when referring to the direction that the Earth is 'moving'.

The Earth is orbiting the sun, the Sun is orbiting the center of the galaxy, the galaxy is orbiting the center of the local galactic group, the local galactic group is orbiting the the center of of the local super group, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So, all you can say is that the Earth is moving.

2nd Star to the right and straight on till morning??

Trying to answer one learns a lot.
It is pretty much studied for decades.
We are able to determine our direction and velocity with respect to cosmic microwave background radiation thanks to its dipole - red/blue shift.
It seems that

our current relative speed compared to the rest frame of the CMB is 368 km/sec or 823,000 miles per hour.

The local group of galaxies actually has a speed of 627 km/sec relative to the CMB. (See arxiv.org... ) so the speed of the sun around the galaxies center of mass is in a somewhat opposite direction to give a net speed of 368 km/sec

So our galaxy is moving...

with respect to the photons of the CMB, toward 10.5 right ascension, −24° declination (J2000 epoch, near the center of Hydra). This motion is observed by satellites such as the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) as a dipole contribution to the CMB, as photons in equilibrium in the CMB frame get blue-shifted in the direction of the motion and red-shifted in the opposite direction

Local group to the Virgo constellation, this to the Hydra/Leo Great Attractor/Shapley Supercluster.
It seems we are still moving away from it because of the expansion - which is rather disappointing and confusing, isn't it?


I'm done. It took me hours to get an idea. I'm moving at unknown velocity from my PC to throw basket ball at million miles per hour in unknown direction

And pray that there's intelligent life
Somewhere out in space
Because we're all %($&# here on Earth!

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

Somewhat towards Vega, somewhat away from Sirius.

a reply to: Bedlam

Have you considered all that have been said above? It seems that you mean a local movement of the Earth or the solar system relative to the rest of Milky Way

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: RAY1990

Gravity is king and I suppose the best way to measure things on such a huge scale would be by the heaviest thing around, the Milky Way is the biggest thing around and has a super-massive black hole so basically everything is tagging along with that.

The black hole in our galaxy isn't going round anything?

Black hole round, spins round, goes round Universe. Universe round, spins round, goes round... other Universes.

It's the biggest thing around us, I should have been more clear.

Most of space is so far away that our pocket of mass (The Milky Way) will never be affected by them. I say space but it's more like the pockets of mass riding space. Space is expanding and the accumulation of this growth is "pushing" apart galaxies faster than their respective velocities.

13.8 billion years is about the distance in time we can see, anything more than that then the growth of space is faster than light can travel.

originally posted by: RAY1990

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: RAY1990

Gravity is king and I suppose the best way to measure things on such a huge scale would be by the heaviest thing around, the Milky Way is the biggest thing around and has a super-massive black hole so basically everything is tagging along with that.

The black hole in our galaxy isn't going round anything?

Black hole round, spins round, goes round Universe. Universe round, spins round, goes round... other Universes.

It's the biggest thing around us, I should have been more clear.

Most of space is so far away that our pocket of mass (The Milky Way) will never be affected by them. I say space but it's more like the pockets of mass riding space. Space is expanding and the accumulation of this growth is "pushing" apart galaxies faster than their respective velocities.

13.8 billion years is about the distance in time we can see, anything more than that then the growth of space is faster than light can travel.

If you could empty the entire Universe of all matter and place two atoms one at each end, motionless relative to each other, their gravity would slowly draw them together across all that distance.

As far as we can see theres galaxies in all directions, every time we see further its the same. The limit to our perception is our instruments.

Space is infinite. Meaning it goes on forever. There is no barrier out there, and if there is, what is outside that... and that?

originally posted by: intrptr
If you could empty the entire Universe of all matter and place two atoms one at each end, motionless relative to each other, their gravity would slowly draw them together across all that distance.

Actually, no. Due to the expansion of the universe, those atoms would be receding from each other at many times the speed of light. The effect of gavity is only effective on the scale of galactic clusters and smaller.

originally posted by: wildespace

originally posted by: intrptr
If you could empty the entire Universe of all matter and place two atoms one at each end, motionless relative to each other, their gravity would slowly draw them together across all that distance.

Actually, no. Due to the expansion of the universe, those atoms would be receding from each other at many times the speed of light. The effect of gravity is only effective on the scale of galactic clusters and smaller.

I said motionless "relative to each other".

Point being gravity is like light, reaches everywhere.

How can the Universe expand when it is infinite? Infinite already means it goes on forever, so has always been there.

Imo

originally posted by: intrptr
How can the Universe expand when it is infinite? Infinite already means it goes on forever, so has always been there.

Imo

It's finite, but unbounded.

See also: Olbers' paradox

a reply to: Bedlam

It's finite, but unbounded.

Semantics. Unbounded means infinite. "If" finite though, what a waste of space.

Pulls back, gets a wide shot of a shrinking dot of a universe, like a fuzzy blob in the 'sky'. Then bumps into another Universe we used to call Quasars.

Reminds me of a time we used to call other Galaxies, Nebulae. And called other planets, stars. And a time before that, when the Sun was a God.

a reply to: Bedlam

Olber's Paradox

The skies aren't 'dark' , they are filled with energy and light.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
If I had to make a determination, I would say the direction is forwards.

But what if I turn my back to the direction we are heading?

Would I be going backwards then?

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Bedlam

Olber's Paradox

The skies aren't 'dark' , they are filled with energy and light.

See the black places between the stars at night? You wouldn't have that. It would be solid, blinding light. It's not.