Is the earth really about to pass through the galactic plane?

reply to post by mrnotobc

My question is, when will the earth be right exactly in line with the record, and nether above or below it? That's what I'm talking about.

My apologies for a short answer previously. You might find the information given on the site linked below is what you are looking for.

Galactic Equator versus Galactic Plane

You may be surprised to learn that the Sun never "crosses the Galactic Equator" because the Sun is always on that "Equator", by definition. In contrast, the Sun is currently almost 100 light years away from the Galactic Plane, and getting further away all the time. The Sun won't return to the Plane for about 30 million years.

Here we see a source of confusion. In the sort of coordinate system desired by the IAU, "equatorial plane" is the correct name for what we've been calling the "reference plane". Since its full name is the "equatorial plane of the galactic reference system", it could easily (and evidently did) come to be called "the galactic equator".

It really is worth a read through this article.

reply to post by mrnotobc


well im trying to find some links for it but i remember seeing some stuff about this some scientist believe we pass thru galactic plane every 26 million years.which does happen to coinside with extinction level events on earth like the aesteroid.what i thought was strange in article i seen is that they believe it takes about 2 million years for a large asteroid to travel from oort cloud to our inner solarsystem.the fact they believe we passed thru plane about 2 million years ago seem kinda crazy to me ill try to find the article i speak of.

Originally posted by intheknow29
reply to post by mrnotobc

 

well im trying to find some links for it but i remember seeing some stuff about this some scientist believe we pass thru galactic plane every 26 million years.which does happen to coinside with extinction level events on earth like the aesteroid.what i thought was strange in article i seen is that they believe it takes about 2 million years for a large asteroid to travel from oort cloud to our inner solarsystem.the fact they believe we passed thru plane about 2 million years ago seem kinda crazy to me ill try to find the article i speak of.

I think where that number comes from is it takes something like 26 million years for the galaxy to make one revolution. What we're talking about here is more like 26 thousand years, but I'm really not sure. It's some number in thousands though, not millions.