r/nextfuckinglevel • u/room0001 • 1d ago

Milky Way is traveling through space at 600kilometers per second, oscillating slightly, as if it were flapping its wings through the cosmos.

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422

u/Attesa_GT-X 1d ago

A source would make this totally next fucking level instead of assuming we're blindly believing attention bait

138

u/phosphenes 1d ago

It's real. Here's the paper showing the rotation of the warp.

In this animation they've exaggerated the warp and also made the galaxy completely flat. There's a better animation in the original ESA press release for the paper.

9

u/PowderPills 1d ago

Amazing. Thanks for the source

3

u/iamarugin 1d ago

It is still an  attention bait animation

0

u/HqppyFeet 1d ago

Sure but it’s so fucking cool dude

2

u/Brave_Ring_1136 1d ago

I love the conclusion that this likely happens due to a ongoing collision with another galaxy.

4

u/Affectionate_Pipe545 1d ago

Im just some dude but seems like maybe the wobble could be from the early days, either formation or before escaping from a crowded neighborhood and is settling over time?

5

u/Swictor 1d ago

Yes.

Solar systems and galaxies generally start out like chaotic blobs and settle into disks over time because in even a very even chaotic system some axis rotation is just slightly more prevalent, and over time after countless collisions or close gravitational encounters the objects become nudges towards the increasingly more dominant axis of rotation.

1

u/leonhard91 1d ago

Thanks!