What is "up" in space?

[morteduzionism]

The way I understand it is that the planets and sun are essentially on a horizontal plane. Therefore the equatorial region of the planet is actually closest to the sun.

So what is above the plane of the solar system? Does anyone know what is in the space above/below the solar system? If a ship left earth and instead of 'flying' horizontally it turned vertical, to the respective plane of the solar system, and took off, where does it go? Are other stars generally horizontal from ours or are they up/down/diagonally?

[Gary88]

its all jumbled about really, no matter what direction you look the universe apears the same, its called the isotropy principle, so even though our galaxy is 'flat' if you went 'upwards' you would just run into other galaxies.


this reminds me of how in star trek spaceships are always the right way up

[Chaigidel]

yeah but you could reasonably assume because of the makeup of the milkyway that your solar system is on a level so to speak with the rest of the galaxy considering we are kinda flat and spiraled, up would probably be the approaching sagitarius galaxy . :O maybe down wait !-- what gary said

[morteduzionism]

so would flying "up" get someone out of the galaxy quicker than trying to fly its length?(it sounds logical but...)

are there any theories on what, if anything, is inbetween galaxies? are there lone stars just floating around in the space between galaxies?

[Chaigidel]

its large tracts of void (with quantum foam I think and this dark matter business)-- stars are born and live in large collections of matter you may find one out there every once in awhile because of a galactic impact perhaps but i think stars and stuff generally stay around the black holes

[Gary88]

for stars to form you need alot of 'dust' so stars generally form in galaxies because gravity pulls any 'dust' together so all the stars are in the same place if that makes any sense. space itself is about 1 atom of hydrogen per cubic metre of space and yes flying 'upwards' would get you out of the galaxy faster because its like a disc so long and thin.

[morteduzionism]

last questions:

are there any theories on the "thickness" of the galaxy? Or on the amount of time it would take to "fly" up-n-out of the galaxy?

and finally, the closest star to ours, do you know its relative position to ours(horizontal, down and to the left, up and to the right, etc)?

thanks for your answers also

*damned honor harrington book got me thinking about space travel...lol

[Gary88]

erm, without looking through some books scatered about this room (i will in a bit and post later) yes we know how thick the galaxy is and how long it would take depends on the speed, to put it in perspective the fastest man made thing (voyager) travels at 56000 kmph and took 12 years to reach pluto and to reach the edge of the solar system will take 10,000 years or so. the nearest is Proxima centauri and is about 4 light years away but i dunno where abouts it is off the top of my head.

[Curtana]

We should navigate in the galaxy by moving clockwise or anticlockwise, rimwards or corewards. Up and down should be relative to the clockwise movement. I'm being completely nonsensical, aren't I?
When in doubt on important astronomical questions always refer to your Monty P primer:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

monty python?

[Kanaric]

There is no "direction" in space, only differences in distance from one point to another and pretty much the trajectory from that.

You could consider up to be many things. Either the plane of the galaxy, our solar system, polaris as viewed from earth, idk.

In science fiction they usually use the plane of the galaxy.

[NaptownKnight]

Up and down are irrelevant in space.

[Zodiac]

Actually Venus and Pluto(There are probably others but, meh) don't follow the Horizontal Plain. Their Tilted somewhat I believe.

[Ulyaoth]

how venus? I thought only Pluto and Neptune were because they're revolving around a shared center of gravity between themselves that causes Pluto to everyonce in a while become closer to the sun than Neptune?

[Gary88]

Actually Venus and Pluto(There are probably others but, meh) don't follow the Horizontal Plain. Their Tilted somewhat I believe.

only by about 7 degrees though also pluto isnt a planet anymore

[Mathius]

There are a few freeware packages that give 3D star maps to give a sense of our position in it all...

http://www.anumajor.com/astrofly/
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

[Amorphos]

yeah man space is a big plane, what would happen if we went up from that plane itself - i know you can’t physically, but what is there?

equally so; the universe has no edge - as it is on that plane [often visualised as like a sphere], which means there are no planets anywhere in the universe, where you can look up at the night sky and see stars on side and nothing the other. work that one out?

[Gary88]

i didnt quite understand that but this might help you. if you went to the edge of the universe...and kept going you would end up back where you started.
"hang on, wtf!?"
yep thats right, back where you started. now that seems pretty illogical but try and look at it this way. imagine you live in a 2 dimensional world like on a piece of paper, if you walk from one side of you paper world to the other you find a definate edge, the edge of the paper. now suppose you suddenly get put in a 3 dimensional world, the earth. you start at one point and begin to walk (just imagine the earth was a bit smaller) and eventually you get back to the same place you started...how the **** did that happen? its the same for us because we can only comprehend 3 space dimensions and 1 time dimension but the universe is in more dimensions than this. i hope that helped, like i say i didnt quite get your point but it seemed the whats beyond the edge of the universe was relevent.

[Amorphos]

gary88

if you went to the edge of the universe...and kept going you would end up back where you started

yes i know, of course you wouldn’t actually reach the edge because it has no edge, hence my paradox; if you weren’t travelling but still, then why is there no location in space where you would be near to an edge! there are a limited amount of stars right, thus there must be some location which shows this limit?

i see your point - yet the paradox remains irrespective of dimension. think of it like this; if there were only a handful of stars in the universe then you could travel and end up back approximately where you started yes, but you could also live on a planet at a location which is on the edge! now add a few billion more stars times a few billion galaxies - it remains the same. it is just the vastness which blurs the vision.

[Gary88]

but you wouldnt know you were on the edge because you would see the other edge as being joined onto it