
One of the Milky Way's arms might encircle the entire galaxy - lelf
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-milky-arms-encircle-entire-galaxy.html
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pan69
Not entirely related, but the scale of this I find just mind boggling. E.g. I
learned a little while ago that the universe of Star Trek just takes place in
"our" galaxy alone! Not the entire universe, just our galaxy. Imagine the
billions of other galaxies out there... Mind blown..

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kylek
Most of it (original and TNG) actually takes place in the 'alpha quadrant'
only. DS9 introduces the wormhole to the gamma quadrant, and Voyager is mostly
about the trek back from the delta. Warp 9 is garbage in the grand scheme of
things eh! ;)

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dghughes
The Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years long and 1,000
light-years deep (Wikipedia). edit: I'm not sure why I felt the need to write
that.

Voyager was 70,000 light-years from home and it was said on the show they
needed 70 years at warp 9 to get home so the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000
light-years per year (365 earth days) plus the whole faster than light thing
which disregards the usual light year in a year thing. That's 2.74 light years
per day which seems low considering Warp 1 is supposedly equivalent to the
speed of light.

We've been lied to all these years it's all fake man!

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vubuntu
What part of "2.74 light years per day" seems low? Assuming your break down to
the day level is right, to expand, it means at warp 9 voyager is capable of
covering a distance of 2.74 light years in 1 day. That means the distance that
light could travel in 2.74 years, Voyager could cover in 1 day. So warp 9 =
2.74 x 365 x speed of light =~ 1000 times speed of light. So warp 1 = speed of
light. warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. which does not seem 'low' to me.

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boyaka
All you did was reverse the calculation that was done in the comment you are
replying to. He already stated that warp 9 is 1000 times the speed of light:

"the velocity of warp 9 must be 1,000 light-years per year"

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vubuntu
OP points out that warp 1 is supposedly speed of light and yet some how warp 9
being 1000 light years per year is somehow not impressive enough. I reversed
the calculation to point out that warp 9 = 1000 times speed of light. And want
to know what part of it is not impressive enough or misleading.

And by the way OP did not directly point out that warp 9 is 1000 times speed
of light and my intention was to point that out to make sure they did not get
confused by their own calculation which might have led to their underwhelming
impression.

Seeing OP's response to one of the comments below (warp 9 factor = 834 )
validates my assumption that OP was lost in his own calculations for a moment.
Only they can confirm.

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r00fus
I've still not found anyone who can explain to me why galaxies aren't simply
considered large (and 3 dimensional) accretion discs. In that regard, why
would it be weird that "arms" of the accretion disc might not wrap completely
around the drainspout anyway?

I guess it's not romantic to think we're all just circling a very large
drain...

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kylek
If it's romantic you're looking for, forget about gravity for a minute and
consider the large-scale electromagnetic forces at work. The recent news about
intergalactic structures in the universe (google "the great attractor" to
start), our position on the edge of Laniakea and the seemingly-mirrored
Perseus-Pisces supercluster, of which we are basically smack dab in the
middle. Obviously not definitive by any stretch, but maybe we actually are the
center of it all?

