this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024

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NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Object Moving 1 Million Miles Per Hour (science.nasa.gov)

submitted 9 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/interestingshare@lemmy.zip

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Most familiar stars peacefully orbit the center of the Milky Way. But citizen scientists working on NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project have helped discover an object moving so fast that it will escape the Milky Way’s gravity and shoot into intergalactic space. This hypervelocity object is the first such object found with the mass similar to or […]

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[–] JeromeVancouver@lemmy.ca 44 points 9 months ago (2 children)

1 million miles an hour is so fast, the speed of light is still 671 times faster.

[–] afk_strats@lemmy.world 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So you're saying it's relatively slow?

[–] Klear@sh.itjust.works 6 points 9 months ago

Yes. Still relatively fast though too.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It is pretty wild how so much mass could be accelerated to that speed.

The idea that a 3 body system could cause it is really cool. Probably not useful to us, but still very cool

[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm getting mass just thinking about it.

[–] RubyRhod@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Did Fukitech release a 3 body system!?

Dammit, I just got the 2!

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 27 points 9 months ago

That’s 0.0015c

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's sort of fast I suppose

[–] DeanFogg@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

What is it and where it goin'?

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

OHLOOKITSTHEREawww it's gone

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Whatta ya mean, you blinked??

[–] JoMomma@lemm.ee 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Relative to what?

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Planet 9 project have helped discover an object moving so fast that it will escape the Milky Way’s gravity and shoot into intergalactic space.

The galaxy presumably.

[–] abysmalpoptart@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Isn't the sun revolving around the center of the milky way at approximately 450,000 mph? And the Earth revolves around the sun, so we're moving about half as fast as this new object right now. One million is pretty fast, but context makes it a little less shocking.

[–] Klear@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

That's not context, that's using arbitrary reference frames.

[+] Iapar@feddit.org 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Klear@sh.itjust.works 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's like claiming you can beat Usain Bolt by sprinting in a moving train. Sure, with respect to ground you cover the distance faster than him, but it doesn't make much sense to count it that way.

[–] abysmalpoptart@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That's not an analogy at all, as it's completely different from what i said earlier. I'm not trying to prove that Earth is moving amazingly fast, I'm trying to show how the headline seems grander than it is.

I also don't think a lot of people realize quite how fast the Earth is moving through space. Saying a million miles an hour really does seem impressive if you don't have that information. But as we speak, we are literally hurtling through space at half that pace.

If we weren't orbiting the sun we would end up orbiting something else at a different speed.

This would be similar to saying that San Bernardino county in California is 20000 sq mi, or about 50k km squared. It's just a number without context. But if i told you it's a county that is it was bigger than both the country of Switzerland and US State of West Virginia, that's added context for size comparison. The way that California divides its county structure does not invalidate this comparison, and is irrelevant.

I'm not really sure what your intent or point is here.

[–] abysmalpoptart@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

I don't think that's entirely fair to say. The headline reads sensationally about a celestial object, but our own sun is traveling at almost half that speed, and we're following it. I'm not trying to prove that the Earth is incredibly fast, only that the headline may sound more impressive than it is.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

clearly an Interstellar traveller

[–] papertowels@lemmy.one 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah, a photoid strike, finally.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 9 months ago

The question is, did they miss their first target?