Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Slick]

"north" ???

[Suicide Junkie]

Based on spin and the right hand rule, I suspect.

[Slick]

Then there would be a "south" but no "east" or "west".

[Hunpecked]

"Spinward" and "anti-spinward".

[Slick]

The entire quote is more precise: "... Sol lies less than half way out (26,000 ly) from the galactic center ... on the core-ward side of one of the galaxy's spiral arms named after Orion... Sol is located 67 ly north of the galactic plane ..."

So we have Radius, direction (if you can call in the direction of Orion a true direction) and distance above the galactic plane. That's cylindrical coordinates.

[Hunpecked]

One could also give directions relative to something outside our galaxy, such as a prominent galaxy or cluster of galaxies more or less on the plane of the Milky Way. Movement around the galactic center would eventually change our position relative to this marker, of course, but differential movement would do the same with regard to stars inside our galaxy.

A Wikipedia article describes a spherical coordinate system for the Milky Way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_plane

[Wolfman77]

Sorry about the quote, I wasn't thinking about location as much as looking at the part about the newer stars around us.

Good wiki article on coordinates a few posts back.

Once the stars fuse the hydrogen into large elements, and there isn't enough left to make significant amounts of things like water. I think it will probbably work like most stuff does. We'll never runn completely out , but there will be less and less, and fewer and fewer stars being born. so the amount of habitable areas will shrink.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Slick said:
Then there would be a "south" but no "east" or "west".

In, Out, Up, Down, East, West.

* Niven!