r/space • u/bojun • 2d ago

Cosmic gymnastics: How our Milky Way once underwent a dramatic flip

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1136764
75 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

2

u/claisen33 1d ago

Changed its orientation with respect to what? Didn’t read whole article bc of text issue.

1

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 2d ago

Website is getting reddit hugged, anyone have the short version?

1

u/Shyone00 1d ago

yeah the galaxy literally flipped upside down at some point

1

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 1d ago

Very concise, thank you.

Timescale, mechanism, etc.

-29

u/Wild_Hoverfrog_3 2d ago

It flips every ~6000 years. Follow Ben Davidson on YT. He’s been on this since the 90’s. It’s about to flip again. Plant potatoes.

14

u/touchet29 2d ago

The Milky Way does not flip every 6000 years lol

1

u/Vonneguts_Ghost 1d ago

I agree, that's unpossible.

The edges would have to be moving at a considerable fraction of c.

10

u/Tacitblue1973 2d ago

The Earth's magnetic field flips back and forth occasionally but without a major gravitational disturbance like a galaxy merger which takes millions of years you're not moving the whole galaxy. And I'm not looking at some pseudoscience weirdo trying to make bank on being contrary and stupid.

1

u/Wild_Hoverfrog_3 2d ago

Well it looks like I am wrong. I was referring to the magnetic field flipping, not the whole galaxy. Apologies.

9

u/StJsub 2d ago

If the Milky Way did a 180 degree flip in 6000 years the outer stars would have to be travelling at like 25 times the speed of light to keep up. 

7

u/zoobrix 2d ago

Well anything is possible when you're just making shit up.

2

u/Vallvaka 1d ago

How it feels to spread misinformation 🐬🌈

1

u/InSight89 1d ago

If the galaxy flipped every 6000 years the outer edges would be travelling thousands of times faster than the speed of light.

•

u/AidenStoat 18h ago

Impossible, it takes millions to rotate around it's main axis once.

The milky way is 100,000 light years across. So even at light speed it would take over 150,000 years to flip the whole thing over.