is the milky way galaxy governed by gravity?

Answer 1

Yeah, gravity is the only force acting on large bodies like stars and galaxies. The others don't have nearly the same effect.

Answer 2

Yes. The Milky Way is a rotating spiral galaxy, all matter in the galaxy is attracted in effect to the "centre of gravity" of the galaxy, which you can think of as the average location of the mass. The galaxy's rotation counteracts the gravitational effect so that overall it has a reasonably stable size and shape. For any individual body in the galaxy, there are local gravitational forces, eg the effect of the Sun on the Earth, or the Earth on the Moon, but these are just small elements in the behaviour of the galaxy as a whole gravitational system. Gravity has no known distance limits, so galaxies themselves are just individual elements within galaxy clusters whose behaviour is again governed by gravity. And the whole known universe is governed by gravity - until relatively recently it was thought that the whole universe might eventually collapse under gravitational forces into a single point.

Answer 3

absolutely.

All stars in the galaxy rotate around a galactic center but not with the same period. Stars at the center have a shorter period than those farther out. The Sun is located in the outer part of the galaxy. The speed of the solar system due to the galactic rotation is about 220 km/s. The disk of stars in the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across and the sun is located about 30,000 light years from the galactic center. Based on a distance of 30,000 light years and a speed of 220 km/s, the Sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way once every 225 million years. The period of time is called a cosmic year. The Sun has orbited the galaxy, more than 20 times during its 5 billion year lifetime. The motions of the period are studied by measuring the positions of lines in the galaxy spectra.

Answer 4

"governed by" - not sure that has any meaning in this context.
The motion of anything larger than a solar system are dominated by gravity so I suppose you could say that the galaxy is "governed by" gravity but it is not the word I would choose.

If you are curious the reason why gravity is the dominant force at large scales is that it cannot be canceled out. The other known forces are all far stronger but either fade after a tiny distance (strong and weak nuclear force) or come in 2 forms which cancel (electromagnetic).

Answer 5

All galaxies, including the milky way, are governed by gravity.

Answer 6

There is no proof that the Milky way, infact, ANY galaxy, is governed by gravity, but I think no, the Milky Way is not supported by gravity.

I think so because there is no epicentre to the Universe, everything's moving all around the place with freedom. Astronomers even say that our galaxy could crash into another one with a few billion years.

Answer 7

The stars in the galaxy are held together by each other's mutual gravity.

Answer 8

The whole universe is "governed" by gravity.

Answer 9

No, it has to govern in conjunction with the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces in conformance with a few laws that cannot be repealed.
However, it is acting in concert with the weak and electromagnetic forces to drive out the strong force.
Gravity's secret motive for doing this is that it knows the word "triumvirate", but does not know the word to apply to 4 governors.

Answer 10

Interesting. I never thought about that. Cos the whole galaxy is rotating so there must be some gravitational pull at the center.