• bstix
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    2 days ago

    The Milky Way is in a sort of orbit around the center of the Local Group which is the name for the local group of galaxies. It’s not a clean circular orbit and it’s not possible to calculate the rotation time, because the pull from other galaxies is stronger than their collective centre of point of gravity, but sure, it rotates overall on that scale too.

    The next levels are different. The Local Group is part of a larger supercluster of galaxies that do not seem to rotate. It’s more like flows of galaxy clusters. Depending on the point and scale we look at, it may be shrinking or expanding. Perhaps there is some rotation to it, but the scale of both distance and time is so incredibly large that it’s meaningless.

    • stebo@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      the Local Group, which is the name for the local group of galaxies

      sounds like they spent a lot of time coming up with that name

      jokes aside, thanks for the interesting info!