1. I do apologise that our conversation hasn't been sufficiently entertaining for you, 'King' Plymouth.
2. Can't think of a reason that crossing the galactic plane (from only our point of view) would do anything magnetic. Electromagnetism doesn't really act at long ranges, that's gravity's job.
What's up with the sun?
Perhaps I was using the wrong terminology when asking my question, but I am grateful for your clarification, Sput. The ‘galactic equator’ is indeed an imaginary line bisecting the plane of our galaxy, but some have speculated that it contains unusual gravitational effects which may occur during particular alignments between the Sun, Earth and the (as yet theoretical) ‘Super-Massive Black Hole’ at the centre.Sput wrote:It's just from our point of view, and that's what stuart's talking about. That basically makes it meaningless since it's measured from an arbitrary location,
It appears that the documentary I saw was referring to an alignment between Earth and Sun’s position with the centre of the galaxy along the galactic plane on 21 December 2012. However, many seem to believe that is actually a phenomenon which wouldn’t hold any significance (in terms of potential gravitational effect) either on our magnetic field or the planet’s crust.
Furthermore, we will be 6˚ off actual alignment in 2012, and it actually takes 36 years for us to pass through the galactic equator anyway, so a specific date has little relevance. The calculation of December 2012 was actually made by Myan astrologers:
After some digging on t’internet, it seems I wasn’t the only person to be taken in by this ‘prophesy of doom’; but at least I enjoyed exploring the topic further!Dr Shepherd Simpson wrote:… their astrological predictions were out by some 15 years. (Which actually would be pretty good, seeing as they didn't have computers or astrological software to help them).
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Hmmm. While the Mayans did build some impressive things in the middle of the rainforest I suspect their knowledge of the universe was somewhat limited.
For example they sacrificed people to keep the sun god happy.
In sunspot news, there was a tiny little one this week from cycle 24. Only lasted a matter of hours, and almost certainly wouldn't have been counted at all in terms of the historical records.
For example they sacrificed people to keep the sun god happy.
In sunspot news, there was a tiny little one this week from cycle 24. Only lasted a matter of hours, and almost certainly wouldn't have been counted at all in terms of the historical records.
I predict there will be many sacrificial slaughters before The Sun god before June 2010, but that is for a different thread.marksi wrote:Hmmm. While the Mayans did build some impressive things in the middle of the rainforest I suspect their knowledge of the universe was somewhat limited.
For example they sacrificed people to keep the sun god happy.
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By finding the centre of rotation (the gravitational centre of our galaxy), noting the deviance over time against other fixed objects outside it, and then calculating the median. That provides a ‘theoretical galactic plane’.marksi wrote:Hmmm. How does one measure the exact location of the galactic plane?
Unless our own galaxy is atypical, then the ‘Milky Way’ should look similar to this:
But side-on… the 'disk' outside the centre is ‘thinner’ than the white part of a fried egg, in comparison.
Our galaxy will be ripped apart gravitationally when we merge with the Andromeda galaxy in 3.5 billion years. (just after our National Debt is repaid – tsk!)
However, it’s not the end…it’s like two clouds of smoke colliding - everything would be so far apart that physical collisions were unlikely, but in the turmoil some stars (and their planets) may be thrown outside the new galaxy.
An interesting bit of blurb on that is available here.
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I think you'll have to provide a paper for discussion on the meaning of 'Proper Science', Nini.Nini wrote:So, of the three nerds here which of you happen to actually deal with science (proper science mind) as a job and not just armchair physicists?
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