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Probably it’s a perspective issue, but galaxies look relatively close to each other, is that the case? I mean they look relatively close compared to their size
by elboru 6y ago
Probably it’s a perspective issue, but galaxies look relatively close to each other, is that the case?
I mean they look relatively close compared to their size, in contrast our solar system’s bodies are really far away from each other (of course relatively).
- tempestn 6y agoRemember it's 3d; they're not arranged on a single plane.
- nabla9 6y agoAverage distance between galaxies is 10-100 times the diameter of the average galaxies. Andromeda for naked eye is a smudge six time bigger than the moon (3.0 degrees across).
- depressedpanda 6y agoI found it hard to believe that Andromeda would be six times larger in the night sky than the moon, so I searched online and discovered this article showing what the galaxy would look like if it were brighter: https://petapixel.com/2014/12/08/photos-night-sky-look-like-andromeda-galaxy-brighter/ https://petapixel.com/2014/12/08/photos-night-sky-look-like-... Wow. TIL.
- Ono-Sendai 6y agoYou can see it with the naked eye in a very dark place. It looks like a big brighter smudged area, a little off the plane of the milky way. And it does appear a lot bigger than the moon.
- Ma8ee 6y agoThey are. Stars are of the order of thousands of star-diameters apart from each other, while galaxies are of the order tens of galaxy-diameters apart.
- sigstoat 6y ago> Stars are of the order of thousands of star-diameters apart from each other no. they're millions of star-diameters apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radius compare it to a light year. note that the nearest star is 4 something light years away. the average is about 5 ly. > while galaxies are of the order tens of galaxy-diameters apart. i think that's low, but harder to define.
- Ma8ee 6y agoYou are absolutely right. I was too quick trying to convert between millions of km to lightyears in my head.
- mkl 6y agoThey are far apart because they are different distances away from us. E.g. two galaxies that look right next to each other in the image could be 5 billion and 6 billion light years away from us, which means 1 billion light years away from each other. Hover over the galaxies in the image here to see the distances (warning: makes sound): https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180305.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180305.html