this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
800 points (99.0% liked)

Science Memes

18651 readers
1610 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 83 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Uhhm guyss shes just taking us around the galaxy

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 43 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

and where is the galaxy taking us then?

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 60 points 3 weeks ago

To visit/fistfight the Andromeda galaxy.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 41 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

to the Great Attractor

Through a series of peculiar velocity tests, astrophysicists found that the Milky Way was moving in the direction of the constellation of Centaurus at about 600 km/s. [citation needed] Then, the discovery of cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipoles was used to reflect the motion of the Local Group of galaxies towards the Great Attractor.[8] The 1980s brought many discoveries about the Great Attractor, such as the fact that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy impacted. Approximately 400 elliptical galaxies are moving toward the Great Attractor beyond the Zone of Avoidance caused by the Milky Way galaxy light.

We're actually traveling with a lot of friends through the immeasurable heavens.

[–] SlackerPreface57@feddit.online 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The Great Attractor is actually a giant construct to escape the universe. https://xeelee.fandom.com/wiki/Bolder%27s_Ring

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
[–] Una@europe.pub 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Andromeda and Milky way might marry each other and become one flesh and one soul like Jesus Christ intended it to be.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] 0ops@piefed.zip 63 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Sun: "Hey, do you want toooo... go for a walk?"

Planets: go apeshit

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Noite_Etion@lemmy.world 37 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And like all good mothers one day she will grow into a red giant, engulfing her children and obliterating all life on earth.

That is the true meaning of mothers day ❤️

[–] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Did everyone forget about the galaxy? It's also a giant circle, and the sun orbits it like we orbit the sun.

Perhaps the real question should be "Where is the Galaxy taking us?"

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

“Where is the Galaxy taking us?”

Towards the andromeda galaxy which is over twice the size of the Milky Way. We are hurtling towards each other at about a quarter millions miles per hour.

For thousands of years after you die, that little fuzzy spot near Cassiopeia will slowly get larger and larger in the sky, and in about a four billion years, long after the Earth's oceans have dried up and the sun is a giant, reddish monster hovering in the sky, and our magnetic field will have long since died out, our atmosphere will have been mostly stripped away and the weather will feel like being on the highest mountains in an oven, the night sky will be covered with a dazzling display of the Andromeda galaxy overhead, spiral arms visible with the naked eye stretching from horizon to horizon.

We will merge, in a series of passes through each other, with almost no stars actually colliding most likely, although a good number will be ejected into the emptiness of intergalactic space, and will finally settle into a new shape, and may trigger a new phase of star formation as new clouds of gas and dust collide and collapse in the new super-galaxy.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But you're still coming in to work, right?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SethTaylor@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Knowing there's no chance imaginable of being able to witness all this is so depressing... My death anxiety feeds on thoughts like this.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Unbecredible@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh no you zoomed out to far and triggered the weird sensation. How bizarre it all is!! To know these things as little ape creatures. So small as to barely exist in a lake of space and an ocean of time. Whywhywhyhowwhyhowhowhow is any of this real???

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You're also made of 30-trillion little microscopic machines with vastly more complexity each than even the most fantastic clockwork we've ever devised, that are each working in harmony with each other, creating a vast machine that is continually breaking itself apart and rebuilding itself from parts of its environment as it moves through time and space.

And somehow you can breath either manually or automatically without breaking a stride.

So what you're saying is, we're all just REALLY good factorio runs

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Thorry@feddit.org 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Fun fact, we do not just orbit the galaxy in a circle, we also have a motion perpendicular to that circle. We oscillate up and down through the plane of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is super thin, like super ultra thin. If the Milky Way were a pancake, it would only be the thickness of a sheet of paper, a sad pancake indeed. However in terms of human scales it is still huge, so we have a large way to travel. Our galactic orbit is tilted as compared to the galactic plane, so throughout the cosmic year we move up and down as compared to the center. A motion of 100-200 light year, so pretty big. That orbit also has procession, so we move through different parts.

The galaxy itself is also moving, although at that scale it's easier to think of the galaxy to be stationary and other galaxies moving towards or away from us. In general we are all moving towards a galaxy cluster known as "The Great Attractor" as it is the most massive (except for your mom).

It's also often forgotten that our sun isn't the only star moving in the galaxy. All of the stars orbit the galaxy in a lot of different orbits. And some don't orbit at all, instead moving with escape velocity (or faster) to get flung outside of our galaxy. Some have their own orbit in companion dwarf galaxies that in turn orbit our own galaxy. It's easy to think of a galaxy as a fixed thing, with all the stars in the same place moving together like on a disk. But this isn't the case at all, stars aren't bound together and can follow their own path. Over time their relative positions change and the constellations we know won't exist anymore.

The structures we see in galaxies like spiral arms for example are only structures in the same way a wave in the ocean is a structure. It is clearly a thing that exists, with properties we can at least somewhat constrain (like size for example). But the water inside that wave is just water like everywhere else. At one point it's part of the wave and then at some point it no longer is. It's the same for stars, sometimes part of a structure, other times not (although it gets complicated quickly if you dig into the details)

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's called a crepe and they are DELICIOUS.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 5 points 3 weeks ago

As far as I know we're headed toward another galaxy. Luckily we'll all by long gone by the time that collision happens.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] scala@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (16 children)
load more comments (16 replies)
[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago

The sun is not a sweet mother, he is armed with the great serpent Xiuhcoatl and demands the hearts of our enemies.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 3 weeks ago

That's not Mama, that's our son!

[–] Liz@midwest.social 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's my understanding that the specific direction on this relative motion graphic is just made-up, but it does do a good job of reminding people that we're orbiting the galactic center.

[–] StellarExtract@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I'd love to know what the actual direction currently looks like though

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Zink@programming.dev 10 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Fun, fun, we skip along together!

Swirling towards the center...

Where there is no pain and we are truly together, forever.

...

Eat at Arby's

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The fun stops when you find out about Sagittarius A.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hesh@quokk.au 8 points 3 weeks ago

Just a loop around Sag A*

[–] zen@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What if Sol is not our Mama, but our Pied Piper? 🎺

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 6 points 3 weeks ago

Probably true for Pluto.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] stiffyGlitch@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

ok! time for all those years of science to finally pay off:

Would you still love "her" if you knew that, every single second, thousands of waves of extreme radiation from the Sun, traveling at a million light-years per millisecond, hits our planet's atmosphere? These waves slowly erode one of the only protections that we have against the Sun. But don't worry, this planet has several more tricks up -- and under -- the crust of the Earth. The iron core of the earth emits a geomagnetic field that extends into space, creating a region called the magnetosphere. This magnetosphere blocks most of the Sun's deadly rays, deflecting them back into space.

(also I didn't get this off of Google. I just have a really good memory. also I added the bolded words)

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

traveling at a million light-years per millisecond

You're only off by a factor of about 30 quadrillion.

Light (famously a type of radiation), takes 1 year to travel a light-year, hence the name.

If you want to make it sound impressive, then astronomical units aren't the right choice. The sun is only 1 AU away from us after all.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] massacre@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

million light-years per millisecond

Gonna need a citation on that one! ;)

kidding aside, Mars is a great example of what will happen to Earth should our core stop generating our magnetic field. Also... Auroras!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

Um, yes because without those waves plants wouldn't grow and we wouldn't be alive.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 6 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

The sun is literally having zero part in this. We would still circle around the galaxy in the same way without her. Only orbits would change a bit.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Does the sun actually travel in a straight line, or do the orbits of the planets wobble it, and to what extent?

[–] rImITywR@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Everything in the solar system (even the Son) orbit around the center of mass of everything in the solar system. This epicenter is just outside of the Son, on the side that Jupiter is. So the Son wobbles by a little bit more than 1 of its radii.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 weeks ago

Sun, I am disappoint.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] tomiant@piefed.social 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I am under the impression that straight lines don't really exist in the Universe.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago

Juipiter's orbit wobbles it, as others said, the barycenter of the system is outside the sun's radius, but the scale of the planets vs their orbits is so great such a small wobble is imperceptable if you can see multiple orbits.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

i see, that's why the ecliptic and the milky way don't align on the sky

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I mean its kinda terrifying when you think about it from the perspective of someone who grew up in an abusive household

"You will never leave my control"

Either you get tossed to the curb by mom and you are cold and alone after being so used to the warmth and the plant is dead (flung out of orbit), or get murdered by her (red giant... engulf the system)

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

Isn't this what Sepiroth wanted to do woth Jenova?

load more comments
view more: next ›