Squishing the galaxy

May 03, 2007 16:17

Here's a question for you to guess the answer to (no Googling or calculators permitted ( Read more... )

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Comments 4

evath May 4 2007, 11:41:42 UTC
are we talking flat into a 2D object? So the earth becomes a disc? Since they idea of density in 2D (as you're units suggest) is icky to me.. (and utterly useless for most of what I do).

If so I don't really have a clue I generally assume that the density of the galaxy is ~0 most of the time.

If you flatten i'd say since I there is a huge space between stars within out own galaxy there is probably much more space than mass. So again 0.

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cultureofdoubt May 5 2007, 17:58:17 UTC
Yes, it is an odd thing to do (but not totally mad for something that's nearly 2D already!

Anyway, I won't accept 0 as an answer as it's obviously not 0 because there is stuff. Compared to the Sun's value it's 0, I'll give you that much....

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evath May 6 2007, 21:32:03 UTC
Well it's closs enough for me :D

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cultureofdoubt May 7 2007, 10:26:09 UTC
Answer is a few hundred g/m^2, so probably somewhere around the thickness of a newspaper or thin book I guess.

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