How long does it take for our solar system to orbit the center of the Milky Way Galaxy?
Because our planet earth orbits our sun (Sol), more accurately, we approach this from our primary star (Sol) “circling” the center gravitational element of our galaxy.
See a good elementary approach to this calculation HERE.
Let’s warm up a bit first before jumping into the big calculus. Planet earth orbits the sun (Sol) once a year. It travels in a counter-clockwise direction around the sun. It completes a single orbit in 365.256 days (1 sidereal year, to be precise). The whole .256 days is why every four years we add an extra day (Leap Day) to the calendar. In that time the earth has traveled 584,000,000 miles (584 million miles).
OK, now the big journey. Our solar system is located approximately 26,000 ly from the center of our galaxy. Our primary star (aka sun, or Sol) orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy on an elliptical circumferance every 225,000,000 years +/-.
Sol is traveling 8,333.334 miles/second x 60 sec/min x 60 min/hour x 24 hour/day x 365.256 days/year x 225 M years = 5.9171472 x 1019 = 59,171,472,000,000,000,000 miles (59.171 Quintillion miles) to orbit the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, once. (Numbers are rounded and approximations.)
(See what to call big numbers HERE.)
Why do I even bring this up? The size of our own Milky Way Galaxy is HUGE! Scientists have estimated the existence of approximately 2 Trillion galaxies in the known universe. What does that mean? Space is a big place. And that begs the question:
For what purpose?
FUN WITH NUMBERS:
WHEAT ON A CHESS BOARD SCENARIO >>> WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ADD A SINGLE GRAIN OF WHEAT TO A SQUARE ON A CHESS BOARD, 2 GRAINS TO THE NEXT SQUARE, 4 GRAINS TO THE NEXT, 8 GRAINS TO THE NEXT, DOUBLING THE NUMBER ON EACH NEW SQUARE? BY THE TIME YOU ARRIVE AT SQUARE 64, HOW MANY GRAINS DO YOU HAVE?
The 64th square contains 9.223 x 1018 = 9,223,000,000,000,000,000. = 9.223 Quintillion. And, cummulatively (squares 1-64 inclusive) is 264-1 = 1.84467 x 1019 = 18,446,700,000,000,000,000. (18.447 Quintillion) grains of wheat. Nearly EPIC!
