Pop quiz…

… no Googling! Have a guess.

So, the moon goes round the Earth, yes? And the Earth (for all practical purposes) goes round the Sun.

Well, the Sun (along with the rest of our our solar system of course) goes round the Milky Way in a similar fashion. Question is, how many orbits has the Sun got left before it runs out of fuel and dies?

Nearest answer gets five Cougar Points. I’ll post the answer later tomorrow morning. No cheating!

2

2, or 9,397,456?

Edit – he saw my answer sir

27.5 it’s the new 42

half

Orbits of m-way? I’ll guess 0.42 following the HHGTTG theme!

Wesley Snipes

CaptainFlashheart – Member
Wesley Snipes

Is that country rhyming slang for something ?

5 trillion.

Now I’ve checked I see someone else has the right answer.

is it flash ?

One. I win and we turn carbon.

😆

Is there something at the centre of the milky way that our solar system is orbiting?

What’s the milky way orbiting?

dark matter

… maaannn !

Samurai – are you looking at different info to me? I checked my working and I don’t think anyone has it yet…

It’s a lot faster than I expected, TBH

Some!

I’m annoyed. I’ve just finished marking a set of 31 Year 8 science books so I come on to here to relax a bit, y’know- chill…

And then some bloke called Cougar (a MOD!- does he ride a scooter, a Cougar Scooter?) goes and gets my poor tired brain all fired up again when all I really want to do is relax.

Any way, don’t know, don’t care (sulks).

We hit andromada first in is about 4 billion years time so the milky way wont exist as the two merge to create one galaxy – sun lasts about 8 billion years iirc though it depends on what you mean by lasts but it will technically be using fuel.

Is there something at the centre of the milky way that our solar system is orbiting?

The centre of mass of the Milky Way.

Sagittarius A *- thought it was and just checked

We hit andromada first

There’s always one. (-:

For the purposes of the OP question, assume nothing else goes wrong first.

The centre of mass of the Milky Way.

I prefer “long galactic bar” 🙂

The sun has about 6 billion years to go and a cosmic year is about 250 million years long. Pretty simple.

Aah, re-read the question. Yep, no-one has it yet. Apart from me obviously.

26 X 29 X 650B = > quite a few

Baby robin!

How long does it take to complete an orbit? If its a billion years then I’m going to say eight.

I don’t know but I blame Thatcher.

pop quiz?? you sure? wheres the music?

lets do a proper pop quiz, right answer sets next question. ill start with an easy one….

what were joy division previously known as?

warsaw and stiff kittens before that, and my question, what Northern Soul song was the riff from Joy Divison’s Interzone song nicked from?

I know the words to the galaxy song…

Our solar system takes something like 200 – 250 million years to complete one orbit, or one cosmic year, around the centre of our galaxy. We’ll certainly do a few turns before the Milky Way coalesces with Andromeda in about 4billion years. AFAIK, our joining with Andromeda won’t be too catastrophic, as the distances are so vast that very few collisions will occur, but quite frankly, who gives a shit because it’s 4 billion years away.

Are we talking billions as in 1,000 million or a million million?

Makes a bit of difference to the answer

Straw man 😆

our joining with Andromeda won’t be too catastrophic, as the distances are so vast that very few collisions will occur

Yes its unlikely to destroy earth or our solar system. However the temperature here will be so hot there wont be any liquid water so its a mute point.

Negative fluff

Space oddity

(I did Google for that picture, but not the answer)(honest)

Some interesting responses here, cool. Annoyingly, I don’t have a citation for the source for this any more and I just know I’m going to get challenged on it. Que sera; you’re just going to have to take my word for it or google it for yourselves (and no doubt tell me I’m wrong).

If I’d have been asked this cold without really giving it much thought, I’d have guessed it’s either a stupidly large amount or a fraction. The actual answer surprised me, I thought “oh, that’s interesting” and thought I’d share here.

Essentially, this is a ‘big number’ question. The Sun is travelling a very very long way and will live a very very long time. When you divide a very very big number by another very very big number, you get a much more comprehensible figure as a result.

Before the Sun runs out of fuel, it will complete another thirty-one orbits of the Milky Way. For perspective, the last time we were at this point in the galaxy, dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

I’m half tempted to give the points to Ambrose, I couldn’t work out whether his answer was devilishly subtle or a complete fluke.

Some interesting responses here, cool. Annoyingly, I don’t have a citation for the source for this any more and I just know I’m going to get challenged on it. Que sera; you’re just going to have to take my word for it or google it for yourselves (and no doubt tell me I’m wrong).

If I’d have been asked this cold without really giving it much thought, I’d have guessed it’s either a stupidly large amount or a fraction. The actual answer surprised me, I thought “oh, that’s interesting” and thought I’d share here.

Essentially, this is a ‘big number’ question. The Sun is travelling a very very long way and will live a very very long time. When you divide a very very big number by another very very big number, you get a much more comprehensible figure as a result.

Before the Sun runs out of fuel, it will complete another thirty-one orbits of the Milky Way. For perspective, the last time we were at this point in the galaxy, dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

I’m half tempted to give the points to Ambrose, I couldn’t work out whether his answer was devilishly subtle or a complete fluke.

TL;DR 31.