How far would we need to travel to leave our Galaxy? (2024)
Asked by: David Pollock, Cumbernauld
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a disk of stars about 100,000 light-years across, and about 1,000 light-years thick. The Sun is situated about halfway from the centre and is near the middle of the disk in the vertical direction.
So, to leave our Galaxy, we would have to travel about 500 light-years vertically, or about 25,000 light-years away from the galactic centre. We’d need to go much further to escape the ‘halo’ of diffuse gas, old stars and globular clusters that surrounds the Milky Way’s stellar disk.
Finally, if we wanted to go far enough to see our entire Galaxy in all its glory, we’d need to travel about 48,000 light-years vertically. It’ll be a long time before we have the technology to do this, or even to send a telescope there, so for now we’ll just have to enjoy the incredible images we have of other spiral galaxies.
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
, we would have to travel about 500 light-years vertically, or about 25,000 light-years away from the galactic centre. We'd need to go much further to escape the 'halo' of diffuse gas, old stars and globular clusters that surrounds the Milky Way's stellar disk.
To move out of the Milky Way, we need to travel atleast 500 light years vertically, and to be able to see Milky Way from space in its entirety, we need to travel 48,000 light years vertically.
For the moment, sending humans to the edge of interstellar space, let alone across the cosmic void to other stars, remains firmly in the realm of science fiction. But scientists and engineers are developing skills and technologies that might help us get there one day.
Approximately 25,000 years at the speed of light. The galaxy is around 100,000 light years in Diameter, that is 50,000 light years in radius. We Are approximately 25,000 light years away from the centre. Thus, 25,000 light-years distance to the edge.
It is a huge black hole whose mass is 4 million times the mass of the sun. It is estimated that the edge of the Milky Way lies about 950,000 light years away from the galactic center while the Earth lies about 26,670 light years away from the galactic center.
In 2017, the Voyager team successfully fired the spacecraft's trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) thrusters for the first time since 1980, enabling the mission to be extended by two to three years. Voyager 1's extended mission is expected to continue to return science data until at least 2025, and 2030 at the maximum.
Voyager 1 has not yet left the Milky Way galaxy. It is currently in interstellar space, beyond the influence of our Sun's magnetic field, but it has not crossed the boundary of the Milky Way. Voyager 1 is expected to continue its journey through interstellar space for thousands of years.
Coe et al. For most space objects, we use light-years to describe their distance. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (9 trillion km).
Based on our current understanding of physics and the limits of the natural world, the answer, sadly, is no. According to Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, summarized by the famous equation E=mc2, the speed of light (c) is something like a cosmic speed limit that cannot be surpassed.
No, not for the foreseeable future. We have yet to reach the nearest *star* to the sun, at 4.3 light-years, and the nearest major galaxy is approximately 2–1/2 *million* light-years distant (the Andromeda galaxy, M31).
In about 100 trillion years, the last light will go out. The bad news is that the universe is going to die a slow, aching, miserable death. The good news is that we won't be around to see it.
To get to Pluto (which is 5 billion kilometers or 3 billion miles from Earth) in just 9.5 years, as New Horizons will, the spacecraft must travel very, very quickly. As a result, New Horizons will speed by Pluto at a velocity of about 43,000 kilometers per hour(27,000 miles per hour).
The most likely scenario is that humans will not achieve interstellar travel. The distances are just too far. Our fastest space probe to date (New Horizons) travels 58,536 km/h and at that speed it will take more than 18 thousand years to go one light year's distance.
And how fast is the Milky Way Galaxy moving? The speed turns out to be an astounding 1.3 million miles per hour (2.1 million km/hr)! We are moving roughly in the direction on the sky that is defined by the constellations of Leo and Virgo.
The sun and the solar system appear to be moving at 200 kilometers per second, or at an average speed of 448,000 mph (720,000 km/h). Even at this rapid speed, the solar system would take about 230 million years to travel all the way around the Milky Way. The Milky Way, too, moves in space relative to other galaxies.
So whether the Galaxy thickness is 1,000 light years (doubtful) or a thicker 12,000 light years (maybe), the net result is that it will take anywhere from 4,000,000 years to 48,000,000 years to exit the Galaxy by traveling “vertically” (and i...
The edge of the observable universe is about 270,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. If you drive at a steady 65 miles per hour, it will take you 480,000,000,000,000,000 — that's 4.8 × 10¹⁷ — years to get there, or 35 million times the current age of the universe.
As of now, no human-made object has ever left the Milky Way. The distances involved are enormous, stretching the limits of current technology and understanding.
Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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