A New Wrinkle . . . the Third Dimension!

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So what if the Earth is round?! | A new wrinkle . . . the third dimension. | Earth vs. the Center of the Galaxy


Have you ever stood outside and looked at the stars and wondered how far away the objects are, where are they in relationship to each other, and how you could; explain to a friend where you are looking in the sky? This last one is easy, because we just have to define an origin and a coordinate system as we did before. But now, the objects are NOT on a surface like that on the Earth. An object with certain coordinates in the sky can be at ANY distance from us on the Earth. This new wrinkle makes the study of coordinate systems even more interesting.

tutorial
You are about to learn all about Galactic Navigation using the Chandra web site. While you go through the tutorial, try to keep in mind the three things you have learned about how to navigate in any situation. Come back here for a quick review quiz. Click on the Chandra picture on the left to Begin the Chandra Galactic Navigation tutorial.

1. What do we use as the origin for Galactic Navigation?



2. Does our coordinate system use north/south/east/west? What does it use?



3. Is there a scale length for Galactic Navigation?



4. What are the differences between navigating the Milky Way and navigating the earth?



5. Can you explain why we see the bands of the Milky Way in the night sky? Aren't we part of the galactic plane?





milky way
If everyone uses the same system to navigate our galaxy, then we have an understanding of how to define the location of celestial objects. Now that we understand how to navigate the galaxy, lets use Chandra to to find out where objects are in the sky.

More Resources:
Investigate our galaxy using Chandra.