How fast does Earth move through the Universe? (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It’s less about the speed and more about investing the right amount of time and attention in the problem so you solve it.” –Carl Honore

Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity tell us that there’s no Universal, preferred frame of reference. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that our physical Universe doesn’t have an average frame of reference, one which minimizes the relative speeds of all the galaxies to one another.

Image credit: Cosmography of the Local Universe/Cosmic Flows Project — Courtois, Helene M. et al. Astron.J. 146 (2013) 69 arXiv:1306.0091 [astro-ph.CO].

While the Earth rotates, orbits the Sun, which revolves in our galaxy, which moves in the local groups, which in turn is gravitationally attracted to all the galaxies, groups and clusters in the Universe, the leftover glow from the Big Bang allows us to reconstruct exactly how fast we move relative to that. And it turns out that there is a particular frame of reference that’s better than all the others, and we’re not at rest.

Image credit: The pre-launch Planck Sky Model: a model of sky emission at submillimetre to centimetre wavelengths — Delabrouille, J. et al.Astron.Astrophys. 553 (2013) A96 arXiv:1207.3675 [astro-ph.CO].

Go get the full story of how fast Earth moves through the Universe — and some real science — on this non-foolish 1st of April.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1VYmyPe

“The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It’s less about the speed and more about investing the right amount of time and attention in the problem so you solve it.” –Carl Honore

Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity tell us that there’s no Universal, preferred frame of reference. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that our physical Universe doesn’t have an average frame of reference, one which minimizes the relative speeds of all the galaxies to one another.

Image credit: Cosmography of the Local Universe/Cosmic Flows Project — Courtois, Helene M. et al. Astron.J. 146 (2013) 69 arXiv:1306.0091 [astro-ph.CO].

While the Earth rotates, orbits the Sun, which revolves in our galaxy, which moves in the local groups, which in turn is gravitationally attracted to all the galaxies, groups and clusters in the Universe, the leftover glow from the Big Bang allows us to reconstruct exactly how fast we move relative to that. And it turns out that there is a particular frame of reference that’s better than all the others, and we’re not at rest.

Image credit: The pre-launch Planck Sky Model: a model of sky emission at submillimetre to centimetre wavelengths — Delabrouille, J. et al.Astron.Astrophys. 553 (2013) A96 arXiv:1207.3675 [astro-ph.CO].

Go get the full story of how fast Earth moves through the Universe — and some real science — on this non-foolish 1st of April.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1VYmyPe