this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 3 points 47 minutes ago

The sun is literally having zero part in this. We would still circle around the galaxy in the same way without her. Only orbits would change a bit.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 2 points 57 minutes ago

IDK sometimes it feels like everything is just gonna explode one day

[–] stiffyGlitch@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (4 children)

ok! time for all those years of science to finally pay off:

Would you still love "her" if you knew that, every single second, thousands of waves of extreme radiation from the Sun, traveling at a million light-years per millisecond, hits our planet's atmosphere? These waves slowly erode one of the only protections that we have against the Sun. But don't worry, this planet has several more tricks up -- and under -- the crust of the Earth. The iron core of the earth emits a geomagnetic field that extends into space, creating a region called the magnetosphere. This magnetosphere blocks most of the Sun's deadly rays, deflecting them back into space.

(also I didn't get this off of Google. I just have a really good memory. also I added the bolded words)

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

traveling at a million light-years per millisecond

You're only off by a factor of about 30 quadrillion.

Light (famously a type of radiation), takes 1 year to travel a light-year, hence the name.

If you want to make it sound impressive, then astronomical units aren't the right choice. The sun is only 1 AU away from us after all.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 hour ago

A million lightmicroseconds every second

Fixed that for them

[–] Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 hours ago

Um, yes because without those waves plants wouldn't grow and we wouldn't be alive.

[–] massacre@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

million light-years per millisecond

Gonna need a citation on that one! ;)

kidding aside, Mars is a great example of what will happen to Earth should our core stop generating our magnetic field. Also... Auroras!

[–] stiffyGlitch@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Yes! The Auroras are the result of the Sun's rays that were rebounded and sent to both of the poles. Also, I don't know the exact speed, but its really reeeeeaaaaalyyyyy fucking fast. Like, my brain can't even fathom how fast it is. I can't imagine the scientists that study this every single day think. Are they like "oh shit the sun is just about to shart some deadly fucking radiation time to do some science to make it stop" I am actually convinced that science is magic, and every scientist that ever lived had to say some oath to never tell people that they're wizards. Meanwhile we're like "oh ok they have this tool that looks like a medieval torture device they either must be really smart or stole that from a museum or time-traveled and yoinked that shit and brought it back here"

[–] peetabix@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

If those deadly rays are getting reflected back into space, how do astronauts protect themselves against it? Is the ISS beneath the magnetosphere?

[–] ContriteErudite@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

On the side of the Earth facing the sun, the magnetosphere extends about 40,000km into space. On the side facing away from the sun, the solar wind stretches the magnetosphere into a tail that extends well beyond the Moon's orbit. The ISS orbits at an altitude of about 400km; it is well within the magnetosphere.

Because it is above the majority of the atmosphere (and also because it just barely passes through the lowest part of the Van Allen radiation belts), astronauts in the ISS are exposed to higher levels of radiation. However, the ISS has shielding specifically designed to minimize radiation, and astronauts living there are considered to be within safe levels of exposure.

[–] stiffyGlitch@lemmy.world 0 points 5 hours ago

I don't know. science, I guess?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It's all oscillations.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 14 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Fun, fun, we skip along together!

Swirling towards the center...

Where there is no pain and we are truly together, forever.

...

Eat at Arby's

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

burma shave

[–] stiffyGlitch@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

I saw that once and thought that it was an actual jingle for an Arby's commercial x_x

[–] MrShankles@reddthat.com 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

May I have a point of reference?

Edit: in all seriousness, looking for the point of poignancy

[–] EightLeggedFreak@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

There was a twitter account that went by nihilistic arby's and they posted stuff like this.

[–] MrShankles@reddthat.com 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Thanks! Also, like your usrname :)

[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 91 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Uhhm guyss shes just taking us around the galaxy

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago (9 children)

and where is the galaxy taking us then?

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 65 points 1 day ago

To visit/fistfight the Andromeda galaxy.

[–] NaibofTabr 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

to the Great Attractor

Through a series of peculiar velocity tests, astrophysicists found that the Milky Way was moving in the direction of the constellation of Centaurus at about 600 km/s. [citation needed] Then, the discovery of cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipoles was used to reflect the motion of the Local Group of galaxies towards the Great Attractor.[8] The 1980s brought many discoveries about the Great Attractor, such as the fact that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy impacted. Approximately 400 elliptical galaxies are moving toward the Great Attractor beyond the Zone of Avoidance caused by the Milky Way galaxy light.

We're actually traveling with a lot of friends through the immeasurable heavens.

[–] SlackerPreface57@feddit.online 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

The Great Attractor is actually a giant construct to escape the universe. https://xeelee.fandom.com/wiki/Bolder%27s_Ring

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Oh god now there's a new thing I want to read

[–] NaibofTabr 3 points 17 hours ago

I'll try spinning! that's a good trick!

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[–] 0ops@piefed.zip 59 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sun: "Hey, do you want toooo... go for a walk?"

Planets: go apeshit

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[–] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Did everyone forget about the galaxy? It's also a giant circle, and the sun orbits it like we orbit the sun.

Perhaps the real question should be "Where is the Galaxy taking us?"

[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 4 points 14 hours ago

As far as I know we're headed toward another galaxy. Luckily we'll all by long gone by the time that collision happens.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 41 points 23 hours ago (6 children)

“Where is the Galaxy taking us?”

Towards the andromeda galaxy which is over twice the size of the Milky Way. We are hurtling towards each other at about a quarter millions miles per hour.

For thousands of years after you die, that little fuzzy spot near Cassiopeia will slowly get larger and larger in the sky, and in about a four billion years, long after the Earth's oceans have dried up and the sun is a giant, reddish monster hovering in the sky, and our magnetic field will have long since died out, our atmosphere will have been mostly stripped away and the weather will feel like being on the highest mountains in an oven, the night sky will be covered with a dazzling display of the Andromeda galaxy overhead, spiral arms visible with the naked eye stretching from horizon to horizon.

We will merge, in a series of passes through each other, with almost no stars actually colliding most likely, although a good number will be ejected into the emptiness of intergalactic space, and will finally settle into a new shape, and may trigger a new phase of star formation as new clouds of gas and dust collide and collapse in the new super-galaxy.

[–] Spaniard@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Interesting article but it's sad to see that website using dark patterns like subscribe popups and fucking with the back button.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 25 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

But you're still coming in to work, right?

[–] wibble@reddthat.com 8 points 22 hours ago

Not if it's Thursday. I work from home Thursday

[–] Unbecredible@sh.itjust.works 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Oh no you zoomed out to far and triggered the weird sensation. How bizarre it all is!! To know these things as little ape creatures. So small as to barely exist in a lake of space and an ocean of time. Whywhywhyhowwhyhowhowhow is any of this real???

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

You're also made of 30-trillion little microscopic machines with vastly more complexity each than even the most fantastic clockwork we've ever devised, that are each working in harmony with each other, creating a vast machine that is continually breaking itself apart and rebuilding itself from parts of its environment as it moves through time and space.

And somehow you can breath either manually or automatically without breaking a stride.

[–] jivandabeast@lemmy.browntown.dev 7 points 17 hours ago

So what you're saying is, we're all just REALLY good factorio runs

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[–] Thorry@feddit.org 11 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

Fun fact, we do not just orbit the galaxy in a circle, we also have a motion perpendicular to that circle. We oscillate up and down through the plane of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is super thin, like super ultra thin. If the Milky Way were a pancake, it would only be the thickness of a sheet of paper, a sad pancake indeed. However in terms of human scales it is still huge, so we have a large way to travel. Our galactic orbit is tilted as compared to the galactic plane, so throughout the cosmic year we move up and down as compared to the center. A motion of 100-200 light year, so pretty big. That orbit also has procession, so we move through different parts.

The galaxy itself is also moving, although at that scale it's easier to think of the galaxy to be stationary and other galaxies moving towards or away from us. In general we are all moving towards a galaxy cluster known as "The Great Attractor" as it is the most massive (except for your mom).

It's also often forgotten that our sun isn't the only star moving in the galaxy. All of the stars orbit the galaxy in a lot of different orbits. And some don't orbit at all, instead moving with escape velocity (or faster) to get flung outside of our galaxy. Some have their own orbit in companion dwarf galaxies that in turn orbit our own galaxy. It's easy to think of a galaxy as a fixed thing, with all the stars in the same place moving together like on a disk. But this isn't the case at all, stars aren't bound together and can follow their own path. Over time their relative positions change and the constellations we know won't exist anymore.

The structures we see in galaxies like spiral arms for example are only structures in the same way a wave in the ocean is a structure. It is clearly a thing that exists, with properties we can at least somewhat constrain (like size for example). But the water inside that wave is just water like everywhere else. At one point it's part of the wave and then at some point it no longer is. It's the same for stars, sometimes part of a structure, other times not (although it gets complicated quickly if you dig into the details)

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[–] Noite_Etion@lemmy.world 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

And like all good mothers one day she will grow into a red giant, engulfing her children and obliterating all life on earth.

That is the true meaning of mothers day ❤️

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 11 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I mean its kinda terrifying when you think about it from the perspective of someone who grew up in an abusive household

"You will never leave my control"

Either you get tossed to the curb by mom and you are cold and alone after being so used to the warmth and the plant is dead (flung out of orbit), or get murdered by her (red giant... engulf the system)

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

There's a third option, but it may still lead to option 1 eventually. We invent starlifting, and keep our sun "young," while also having the added benefit of strapping a solar thrusters to her so we can steer the solar system.

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[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The fun stops when you find out about Sagittarius A.

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