Galactic year

Galactic year

If the earth year is 365 days, what is the galactic year?



A year is the period of time required for a planet or an asteroid to complete a full orbit around its star, like the solar year of planet Earth, which is about 365 days, which is the period during which our planet makes a complete rotation around its star.
Likewise, a galactic year is a period in which the Sun rotates to complete a full orbit around the supermassive black hole that sits at the center of the Milky Way about 28,000 light-years away.

Galactic year.

According to Keith Hawkins, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, just once in orbit around the Milky Way does the Sun go from around 220 million to 230 million Earth years. (LiveScience).

In this case, if we measure time using the "galactic clock", then the entire age of the Earth will be around 16 galactic years, and the sun will have formed around 20 galactic years, and l he universe age will be around 60 galactic years.

“The solar system's journey around the galaxy is similar to the Earth's orbit around the sun. However, instead of orbiting a star, the sun revolves around the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy. the Milky Way, ”says Hawkins.

During its journey around the center of the Milky Way, the sun moves at a very fast speed, estimated at around 230 kilometers per second, which equates to 500,000 miles per hour (804.672 km/hour).

This allows it to continue to circle around the center of the galaxy in a circle instead of being drawn towards the black hole. It is also the speed at which an object can travel around the Earth at the equator in 2 minutes 54 seconds.

Our place in the galaxy.

Just as the year of the Earth differs from the year of the other planets in our solar system, the galactic year relative to the sun differs from the galactic year relative to other stars in the same galaxy, and it only depends on the distance to the planet or star from the center around which it orbits. A galactic year is therefore not a fixed measurement across the galaxy.

Hawkins returns to explain, “You could say that the year of the galaxy relative to the sun is between 220 and 230 million years of Earth years. As with other stars in the galaxy, the year of their galaxy is different. "

The diameter of the galaxy is about 100,000 light-years, and Earth is about 28,000 light-years from its center. “If you imagine the galaxy as a city, then Earth is somewhere near the suburbs,” says Hawkins.

"For stars orbiting near the black hole, the center of the city, the Hungarian year is relatively short." And in the suburbs, where our solar system is located, the galactic years are a bit longer.

Different planetary years.

These same rules govern the variation in the length of the year between planets. The further away from the sun, the greater the year of this body.

For example, Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, performs one full orbit around the sun in about 88 Earth days. As for Mars, its year is equal to 687 days. The planet Uranus, ranked seventh after the sun, revolves around the sun every 84 years, by Earth standards.

Pluto, which ceased to be a planet after its demotion in 2006, needs to have the longest year in the solar system's main group of 248 Earth years, which to complete an orbital cycle around the sun.

As for Venus, it takes 224.65 days to orbit the Sun, roughly the same size as Earth. But the time it takes to end a day by turning is longer than the time it takes to orbit the sun, so it's the only planet in our solar system that has one day more than its year.

If the galactic year of the sun is roughly equal to 220 to 230 million Earth years, and if we go back in time to one galactic year, Earth will be very different, so there is no Internet, no cell phones, not even humans, and the first dinosaurs will be the ones roaming the Earth at that time.








Share this

Related Posts

Previous
Next Post »