Future of Our Galaxy Galactic Millenium :: Essays Papers

Future of Our Galaxy astronomic MilleniumWhat Does the Future Hold?(adopted from an article by Greg Laughlin and F reddish turns, Celebrating the Galactic Millennium, Astronomy November 2001)Not too enormous ago, we were looking forward to the New Millennium. To many of us, this was an important event of our lives. On a larger scurf, however, the New Millennium looks insignificant. If we adopt an astronomical perspective, however, a much larger and more distant celebration remains on the schedule-the Galactic Millennium, write Greg Laughlin and Fred Adam in their article Celebrating the Galactic Millennium. Laughlin and Adam speculate about the proposed changes to the Universe in the future and the coming of the Galactic Millennium.Present Day GalaxyAccording to the authors, the present day extragalactic nebula is relentlessly empty and spans a tremendous scope. In a scale model of the galaxy where stars argon the size of sand grains, the nearest prima(p) system (Alpha and Proxima Centauris) is six miles away. Our Galaxy contains approximately 100 Billion stars. In this model, the stars move through their orbits at a pace of only a few feet per everyday year. The sun takes nearly 100 million terrestrial years to make a full circuit of the galaxy. The last m the sun passed through our current galactic longitude was in the middle of the cretaceous period, when the giant continent Gondwanaland was beginning to break up into African and confederation America and the giant Carnotaurus enjoyed its place at the top of the food chemical chain (before the reign of T.Rex).What Does the Future Hold?The authors prospected views on the future of our galaxy are rather harsh. The authors argue that a billion terrestrial years from now-in 10 galactic years-the galaxy will look much like it does now. authorized details, however, will be different. As the sun executes its next ten circuits virtually our galaxys central hub, our today-familiar constellation s will be scrambled one hundred generation over. Many of the night stars in the sky will no endless exist. Deneb and Rigel, for example, will explode as supernovae. Sirious will swell into a red giant and puff out a planetary nebula. Alpha Centauri, soon the suns closest neighbor, will recede from the sun, and its apparent brightness will breathe below the threshold of naked-eye visibility.As the next billion years unfold, estate will face pressing problems because of suns activity.