Is earth just a speck of dust revolving around a minor star in the backwoods of our galaxy?

Question

Some people here have stated that earth is just a speck of dust revolving around a minor star in the backwoods of our galaxy, which itself is a relatively small galaxy in the backwoods of the universe. But, maybe you have never quite put it in perspective, so I would like to show you something.
Tell me what you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM

you astronomy regulars are killing me. I have been in Religion/Spirituality so long you could probably stick a volkswagen in my posterior and it wouldn't offend me. What's with all this "no offense" stuff. Dangit, I say my star's dad could beat up your star's dad.

Answer 1

The first two parts are right: the speck and the minor star. I don't think it's fair to refer to our position as the back woods. It's the suburbs, but not the boonies. And our galaxy is a right respectable one. Oh, not the big boss in the neighborhood, but an average sized spiral. As for our position in the Universe, we are considered part of the Virgo cluster, and that, I believe is a well populated one, by most standards.

But the thing that is more revealing is the relative distances of these magnitudes. They are incomprehensible. If the earth was that grain of sand, the sun would be an inch in diameter and about 8 feet away. On that scale, the nearest star would be 411 miles away. And our galaxy would be 5 million miles across. NOW, you can feel lonely.

Sorry, I made a mistake. Now I get 7.6 million miles for the galaxy. (On the earth = a grain of sand scale.)

And the video, yes, I've seen it before. I calculated that each of those two largest stars, if in the center of our solar system, would extend well past the orbit of Uranus.

Answer 2

To answer your question; yes, the earth is a small rocky and metallic planet orbiting an unremarkable G2 type star at a distance of around 92 million miles.

The solar system containing our homeworld is located in a spiral arm of this galaxy we live in called the Milky Way. The section of the galaxy is called the Orion Spur, and is located approximately 30 to 40 light years from the edge of the galaxy, or approximately 1/3 of the way in from the edge.

Our galaxy is part of a group of galaxies known as the Local Group, which is part of another group of galaxies known as the Local Cluster, which is part of another group of galaxies known as the Local Super Cluster.

There really are no backwoods so to speak, as all matter in the universe is traveling in the same direction, or collapse.

Answer 3

Yes, basically. The earth is unimportant to the solar system which is inconsequental to the milky way galaxy which is pretty unimportant in the local supercluster and even less important relative to our galaxy membrane or the universe as a whole.

We're talking alot of orders of magnitude here, but you know there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy and an estimated 300 billion GALAXIES in the observable universe.

But, to humans, the Earth is far more important than any old speck of dust.

Answer 4

The planets revolve around the sun and the sun revolves around galactic centre(in about 250 million years). Yes there is a black at the centre but that not why the sun revolves around the centre of milky way. that black would not have any influence out here since it more than 70,000 light years away. it is the influence of the gravity from other stars plus the influence of dark matters that holds the galaxy together and makes the galaxy revolve. Planets and stars revolve because of conservations of angular momentum.

Answer 5

Speck Of Dust

Answer 6

Yes. Yes we are. We're some little tiny rock that just happened to have enough to create life... Are there other planets with life on them? If oxygen and hydrogen can create life, could far away unknown chemicals create something greater? If we were to discover this, would our small brains be able to handle it? (No offence, I saying small in comparison to what could be out there.) Could they be watching us? If there was a planet created exactly the way we were, would there be humans? I doubt their nature could make the exact trial-and-error mutations... As we sit here, wondering about the simple things like how our eyes work and why our skins are different colours, there is space out there of amounts that are unfathomable. Wow, that's quite a lot from my 13 year old self.

Answer 7

Earth is one of the 8planets in solar system. Jupiter is 1300 times volume of earth and sun is 1300000 times bigger than earth. Most of the satrs have planets. In our galaxy there are 200 billion stars which are bigger than sun and considering the masses,earth is just a speck in our galaxy.

Answer 8

beautiful and great, but the size of a planet compared to the size of a star is = comparing apples and oranges......
plus the term "backwoods" doesn't apply to space...

or location probably indicates we are more stable, older and wiser than most in our galaxy

our planet might be small, must just imagine the cells in your brain required to ask this question

not saying you that have a small brain,
ALL our brains are minuscule objects compared to "dust" in the large scheme of things........

makes one think

Answer 9

Speck of dust? Isn't that an exagerration of size? compared to that largest star, we are LESS than an electron in size (WAY smaller than a speck of dust).

BB,
Raji the Green Witch

Answer 10

Well, you forgot Mars and Uranus first, and Saturn is a little too big. But other than that it was cool to look at... if i could give a suggestion, you could put and asteroid or comet and Pluto on the video.