Star Trek Galaxy Map
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What does "spinward edge of the galaxy" mean? The galaxy is best suited to a polar projection, if you move continually spinwards you'll just keep moving in a circle and never reach an edge.
Yeah, I think they are using 'spinward' the way they should use 'rimward."
Rimward: Towards the galaxy's edge
Coreward: Towards the galaxy's core
Spinward: Moving in the direction of the galaxy's spin.
And I'm sure there should be some fancy term for moving the opposite direction of spinward, but I don't have one.
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Anti-Spinward.
- Widdershins, perhaps? (as popularised in Sir Pterry Pratchett's Discworld novels)And I'm sure there should be some fancy term for moving the opposite direction of spinward, but I don't have one.
ninja'd, tying to get a link to work!- Widdershins, perhaps? (as popularised in Sir Pterry Pratchett's Discworld novels)
It's a real term (no surprise there, given that it's STP), meaning anti-clockwise/against the sun.
dJE
So.... maybe Widward? 
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Yeah, I think they are using 'spinward' the way they should use 'rimward."
Rimward: Towards the galaxy's edge
Coreward: Towards the galaxy's core
Spinward: Moving in the direction of the galaxy's spin.
And I'm sure there should be some fancy term for moving the opposite direction of spinward, but I don't have one.
Different sources give different terms. Trailing or antispinward/counterspinward seem to be the most commonly accepted astronomically correct terms.
- Widdershins, perhaps? (as popularised in Sir Pterry Pratchett's Discworld novels)
Love a bit of Terry
I've long been a fan of using the terms doesil and widdershins – as in his co-authored Long Earth series – but it's perhaps a bit too whimsical Regarding the question of whether the Enterprise encounters the galactic barrier at the rim or not, the TOS episode By Any Other Name gives a good clue as to where the Enterprise goes through the galactic barrier relative to the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.
In that ep, the ship is headed for the Andromeda galaxy when it goes through the barrier.
The Enterprise didn't start from earth but in galactic terms, we could assume it is somewhere in the vicinity, i.e. say, within up to 8000 lightyears of Earth. So all you have to do is find out what direction the Andromeda galaxy is from Earth relative to the Milky Way, the plane of our galaxy, where the rim lies.
In other words, when you look at the Andromeda nebula as it used to be called, in the night sky, is it anywhere near the Milky Way?
Robert
In that ep, the ship is headed for the Andromeda galaxy when it goes through the barrier.
The Enterprise didn't start from earth but in galactic terms, we could assume it is somewhere in the vicinity, i.e. say, within up to 8000 lightyears of Earth. So all you have to do is find out what direction the Andromeda galaxy is from Earth relative to the Milky Way, the plane of our galaxy, where the rim lies.
In other words, when you look at the Andromeda nebula as it used to be called, in the night sky, is it anywhere near the Milky Way?
Robert
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Here's a picture of the Andromeda galaxy relative to the Milky Way, it's the bright yellowish smear just above and left of centre:
If we assume the standard galactic mapping convention of putting the centre of the galaxy "north" of Earth/Sol, then it's approaching from approximately the "southwest", at a relatively shallow angle of about 30° from "below" our galactic plane. Currently it's around 2.5 million lightyears away.
This makes it tricky to say how the Enterprise would have breached the barrier in TOS: "By Any Other Name", because to travel in a direct line would have caused it to travel through a lot of the Milky Way first. On the other hand, the Kelvans may have taken the Enterprise directly out of the Milky Way by travelling the shortest path to the galactic barrier, and then once they were in intergalactic space engaged their engine modifications; there'd be much less dust/radiation/etc in intergalactic space and in terms of a detour it'd be an insignificant fraction of the total route.
The Andromeda Galaxy is estimated to be ~2,500,000 LY away from our Milky Way Galaxy.
Sorry, I could have been more clear in my wording.
I was talking about 'apparent proximity'. Two stars as seen from Earth could 'appear' to be close together while actually, one is much further away. But if you travel toward the farther star, you would necessarily be passing close by the nearer star.
Robert
Here's a picture of the Andromeda galaxy relative to the Milky Way, it's the bright yellowish smear just above and left of centre:
If we assume the standard galactic mapping convention of putting the centre of the galaxy "north" of Earth/Sol, then it's approaching from approximately the "southwest", at a relatively shallow angle of about 30° from "below" our galactic plane. Currently it's around 2.5 million lightyears away.
This makes it tricky to say how the Enterprise would have breached the barrier in TOS: "By Any Other Name", because to travel in a direct line would have caused it to travel through a lot of the Milky Way first. On the other hand, the Kelvans may have taken the Enterprise directly out of the Milky Way by travelling the shortest path to the galactic barrier, and then once they were in intergalactic space engaged their engine modifications; there'd be much less dust/radiation/etc in intergalactic space and in terms of a detour it'd be an insignificant fraction of the total route.
Just so you know, I'm blind so I can't see your image but I think I know what you mean.
Another assumption we can make and I think it's strongly indicated in By Any Other Name is that the planet the Kelvans are on is near the edge of the galaxy. The barrier damaged their ship so naturally, they would limp to a nearby planet.
Upthread someone said the galaxy is 1000 lightyears thick in the vicinity of Sol. My memory may be wrong but I think I read that Sol is supposed to be about 50 lys 'below' the designated plane of the galaxy.
So we could say the 'bottom' edge of the galaxy is 450 lys from Sol while the top is 550 lys away.
If I read your post right, Andromeda is below the plane of our own galaxy at a shallow angle. The Kelvan planet is not necessarily directly below Sol 450 lys away but as I said before if we assume the Enterprise is a maximum radius of 4000 lys from Sol, then that would comprise an area where the Kelvan planet could be since we're assuming it's close to the 'bottom' edge of the galaxy.
So if as you say, we head for Andromeda from Earth, we would be going through our galaxy a good distance before reaching the bottom edge but this would not be the case if we're already at the edge of the galaxy at the Kelvan planet.
Robert
The direction from eArth to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Astronomers use a number of different coordinate systems to map the directions to various celestial objects.
Once you have the directions to different objects, you can use their distances (although many distances ae known only poorly) to find their realtive positions in three dimensional space.
The luminous matter in the Milky Way Galaxy is mostly concentrated in its central bulge region and in its galactic disc which bisects the central bulge and extends far beyond it, although scar tterd globular star clusters and isolated stars extend beyond the disc and the vast amounts of thinly satter dark matter in the galaxy extend even farther out. S it is unknown how much of the Star Trek galaxy is actually enclosed by the (ficitonal) galactic barrier and how much of it is outside the barrier.
To oversimpllfy compex matters of "galactography" (a word coined by Isaac Asimov in The Stars LIke Dust I think) the disc of the Milky Way galaxy is more or less about 1,000 light years "thick" near the Earth's positon, and has a diameter of about 100,000 light years, thus having a diameter about 100 times as great as its "thickness".
The Sun (and thus the Solar System and the Earth) is near the mathematical central plane of the galaxtic disc, but offset by maybe a few tens of light years from the precise central plane. The Sun seems to be at least 25,000 light years from the gravitational central point of the Mikly Way, which is occupied by the supergiant black hole Saggitaurius A*.
According to Wiipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Galactic_Center
So whether someone makes the Sun, or Saggitaurius A* the central point of their milky Way cartography, the distance between them is uncertain by a factor of about 3 percent of the diameter of the galactic disc, an annoying large uncertainty for a map maker. Though much less uncertain than it was 50 or 100 years ago.
As I recall, astronomers prefer to make diagrams of the Milky Way with the galactic center at the center and the Sun straight below it about halfway to the edge of the galactic disc.
according to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galac...te,the galactic plane but offset to its north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system#Spherical_coordinates
The direction to the galactic center, Saggitaurius A*, is 0 degrees galactic longitude, while the direction to the galactic anticenter is 180 degrees galactic longitude.
And this diagram shows that when the galaxy is depicted with the Sun straight below the galactic center the galactic longitude increases in a counter clockwise direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system#Spherical_coordinates
In equatorial coordinates, the direction to the Andomeda Galaxy (presumably its central point) is given as Right ascension 00 hours, 42 minutes, and 44.3 seconds, and Declination plus 41 degeees, 15 minutes, and 9 seconds.
According to this online coordinate converter: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/coordi...&pa=0.0&out_csys=Galactic&out_equinox=J2000.0
The galactic longitude of the Andromeda Galaxy should be about 121.1735 (one hundred twenty one point one seven three five) degrees and the galactic latitude should be about minus 21.5894 (twenty one point five eight nine four) degrees.
Galactic longitude ninety degrees would be straight left of the Sun's position in a standard galactic diagram, and one hundred eighty degrees galactic longitude would be directly below The Sun, opposite to the galactic center, in a standard galactic diagram. So one hundred twenty one degrees would be about one third of the angle between 90 degrees and one hundred eighty degrees.
Galactic latitude minus twenty one degrees would be a little more than 0.2333 (zero point two three three three) or a little less than one quarter of the angle between Galactic latitude zeo and galactic latitude minus nintey.
Thus those coordinates should be useful in drawing a diagram of the direction from Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy relative to the galactic plane and galactic center of the Miliky Way Galaxy, or imagining that direction in one's head.
Astronomers use a number of different coordinate systems to map the directions to various celestial objects.
Once you have the directions to different objects, you can use their distances (although many distances ae known only poorly) to find their realtive positions in three dimensional space.
The luminous matter in the Milky Way Galaxy is mostly concentrated in its central bulge region and in its galactic disc which bisects the central bulge and extends far beyond it, although scar tterd globular star clusters and isolated stars extend beyond the disc and the vast amounts of thinly satter dark matter in the galaxy extend even farther out. S it is unknown how much of the Star Trek galaxy is actually enclosed by the (ficitonal) galactic barrier and how much of it is outside the barrier.
To oversimpllfy compex matters of "galactography" (a word coined by Isaac Asimov in The Stars LIke Dust I think) the disc of the Milky Way galaxy is more or less about 1,000 light years "thick" near the Earth's positon, and has a diameter of about 100,000 light years, thus having a diameter about 100 times as great as its "thickness".
The Sun (and thus the Solar System and the Earth) is near the mathematical central plane of the galaxtic disc, but offset by maybe a few tens of light years from the precise central plane. The Sun seems to be at least 25,000 light years from the gravitational central point of the Mikly Way, which is occupied by the supergiant black hole Saggitaurius A*.
According to Wiipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Galactic_Center
So whether someone makes the Sun, or Saggitaurius A* the central point of their milky Way cartography, the distance between them is uncertain by a factor of about 3 percent of the diameter of the galactic disc, an annoying large uncertainty for a map maker. Though much less uncertain than it was 50 or 100 years ago.
As I recall, astronomers prefer to make diagrams of the Milky Way with the galactic center at the center and the Sun straight below it about halfway to the edge of the galactic disc.
according to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galac...te,the galactic plane but offset to its north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system#Spherical_coordinates
The direction to the galactic center, Saggitaurius A*, is 0 degrees galactic longitude, while the direction to the galactic anticenter is 180 degrees galactic longitude.
And this diagram shows that when the galaxy is depicted with the Sun straight below the galactic center the galactic longitude increases in a counter clockwise direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system#Spherical_coordinates
In equatorial coordinates, the direction to the Andomeda Galaxy (presumably its central point) is given as Right ascension 00 hours, 42 minutes, and 44.3 seconds, and Declination plus 41 degeees, 15 minutes, and 9 seconds.
According to this online coordinate converter: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/coordi...&pa=0.0&out_csys=Galactic&out_equinox=J2000.0
The galactic longitude of the Andromeda Galaxy should be about 121.1735 (one hundred twenty one point one seven three five) degrees and the galactic latitude should be about minus 21.5894 (twenty one point five eight nine four) degrees.
Galactic longitude ninety degrees would be straight left of the Sun's position in a standard galactic diagram, and one hundred eighty degrees galactic longitude would be directly below The Sun, opposite to the galactic center, in a standard galactic diagram. So one hundred twenty one degrees would be about one third of the angle between 90 degrees and one hundred eighty degrees.
Galactic latitude minus twenty one degrees would be a little more than 0.2333 (zero point two three three three) or a little less than one quarter of the angle between Galactic latitude zeo and galactic latitude minus nintey.
Thus those coordinates should be useful in drawing a diagram of the direction from Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy relative to the galactic plane and galactic center of the Miliky Way Galaxy, or imagining that direction in one's head.
I generally use a mental combination of Star Trek Star Charts and the Star Fleet Technical Manual, despite some inconsistencies.
Spinward is a term that (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) originated in Known Space referring to the direction that Ringworld spins with antispinward being the opposite direction, and then was adopted by a larger audience.
Did any captain or ship other than the Enterprise under Kirk during TOS go on a 5 year mission?
According to the opening credits of SNW, Pikes Enterprise did.
I remember as a kid there was merchandise - the micro machines ships, maybe? Or maybe it was a book - that specified that the reason Kirk & the Enterprise were so celebrated was because the Federation sent out a bunch of deep space, 5 year missions and the Enterprise under Kirk was the first to return with both ship and crew (mostly) intact. I always liked that explanation.
Pretty sure some display or other in "Brother" establishes prior 5ym's, 1 under April starting 2245 and 2 under Pike before SNW begins in 2259.
Over in the Kelvin Universe, the Enterprise under Kirk was the first ship selected for the then-new 5-year-mission program which began in 2259.
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