Our Sun might be an immigrant!

[pokerfan]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080915170755.htm">Immigrant Sun: Our Star Could Be Far From Where It Started In Milky Way

[TransitJohn]

1. If they would just build that damn border fence!!!

:hide:

[applegrove]

2. I had always heard the universe was expanding. Always assumed it meant

we were all on the move. And always have been.

[silverweb]

3. My thought, too.

Ever since the Big Bang.

[applegrove]

4. Places to go... things to do.

[silverweb]

6. Wonders to see?

[applegrove]

7. Exactly.

[Ganja Ninja]

5. Well naturally.

We're going around and around as the galaxy spirals and rotates but we're also slowly falling in to the center as we go. 4 to 5 billion years is a long time. We must have traveled a considerable distance since the earth formed. I'm surprised that there's any question of that.

[pokerfan]

9. Astronomers are aware that galaxies rotate

4 to 5 billion years is a long time. We must have traveled a considerable distance since the earth formed. I'm surprised that there's any question of that.

They're talking about movement with respect to other stars in the region.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. The is is about 20 galactic years old

A galactic year is the amount of time it takes an object to travel around the galactic core. It would be very, very surprising to find out that we were not far away from where we started.

This article reminds me of something else I read a few years ago. The Milky Way is the central player in a small group of 14 galaxies (which itself is part of the Local Group of at least 35 galaxies.) One of the small galaxies is the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, which is very likely where much of the gas that condensed into the sun actually came from. We owe the existence of our star, our planet and our very lives to the fact that the Milky Way is slowly eating another galaxy.