Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Slick]

Then there would be a "south" but no "east" or "west".

[Hunpecked]

"Spinward" and "anti-spinward".

[Slick]

The entire quote is more precise: "... Sol lies less than half way out (26,000 ly) from the galactic center ... on the core-ward side of one of the galaxy's spiral arms named after Orion... Sol is located 67 ly north of the galactic plane ..."

So we have Radius, direction (if you can call in the direction of Orion a true direction) and distance above the galactic plane. That's cylindrical coordinates.

[Hunpecked]

One could also give directions relative to something outside our galaxy, such as a prominent galaxy or cluster of galaxies more or less on the plane of the Milky Way. Movement around the galactic center would eventually change our position relative to this marker, of course, but differential movement would do the same with regard to stars inside our galaxy.

A Wikipedia article describes a spherical coordinate system for the Milky Way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_plane

[Wolfman77]

Sorry about the quote, I wasn't thinking about location as much as looking at the part about the newer stars around us.

Good wiki article on coordinates a few posts back.

Once the stars fuse the hydrogen into large elements, and there isn't enough left to make significant amounts of things like water. I think it will probbably work like most stuff does. We'll never runn completely out , but there will be less and less, and fewer and fewer stars being born. so the amount of habitable areas will shrink.

[dogscoff]

Since I'm in a diagrammatical mood (see Ceres thread):


It's the goldilocks syndrome all over again. The question is, where are we on this line? The fact that we aren't yet overrun with aliens would indicate that we are on the steep bit of the climb between A and B, but who knows? Maybe we're somewhere nearer C and everyone else is just extinct already.

Actually, the line between B anc C probably ought to be far shallower and straighter, since the hyrogen->heavy element process will be quicker when the universe is young, because there's more hydrogen about to clump up and form stars.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Slick said:
Then there would be a "south" but no "east" or "west".

In, Out, Up, Down, East, West.

* Niven!