• Question: Will we see anything when the Sun aligns with the Milky Way?

    Asked by chickenbites to Paul on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      The Sun never really aligns with the Milky Way – the MW is a vast galaxy of ~200,000,000,000 stars, and the Sun is just one of them. The Sun orbits around the MW in about 250 million years, and is about two thirds of the way out towards the edge of the galaxy, on the side of a spiral arm.

      The Sun does move up and down as it orbits the MW, a bit like a carousel horse on a merry-go-round. This may have an effect on the solar system, as when we are in the thickest part of the MW, where most of the stars (and therefore mass) is found, the increased gravitational pull might disrupt comets from the edges of the solar system – maybe leading to some of them crashing into planets, and maybe the Earth.

      But the Sun can never “align” with the MW, as the MW is not fixed, it is full of 200 billion moving stars, plus gas, dust and the invisible stuff we call Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

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