As you read, you are flying through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. <\/p>\n
Not only is our planet hurtling around the Sun at incredible speeds, our entire solar system is thought to be soaring through space at approximately 515,000 mph (828,000 kph) as it orbits the center of the galaxy.<\/p>\n
In a bid to better understand the speed and direction of this movement, a team of scientists has made a discovery that challenges the established standard model of cosmology. <\/p>\n
The team, led by astrophysicist Lukas B\u00f6hme at Bielefeld University, found that the universe is, in fact, moving more than three times faster than current models predict. <\/p>\n
The speed and motion of the solar system<\/p>\n
The team of scientists specifically set out to determine the motion of our solar system as it flies through the universe. <\/p>\n
To do so, they analyzed the distribution of so-called radio galaxies in the night sky. These are distant galaxies that emit particularly strong radio waves. As the solar system moves through the universe, its motion creates an extremely faint \u201cheadwind\u201d characterized by more radio galaxies appearing in the direction of travel. <\/p>\n
As the signs are so subtle, only the most sensitive instruments are capable of providing the necessary data. The team used observations from the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, a Europe-wide radio telescope network. They combined this with data from two other radio observatories.<\/p>\n
The team published their findings in a new paper<\/a> in the journal Physical Review Letters. \u201cOur analysis shows that the solar system is moving more than three times faster than current models predict,\u201d lead author B\u00f6hme explained in a press statement<\/a>. \u201cThis result clearly contradicts expectations based on standard cosmology and forces us to reconsider our previous assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n Existing models put to the test<\/p>\n The combined data from all three radio telescopes revealed a deviation higher than five sigma\u2014a very strong signal. The team\u2019s measurements showed an anisotropy (\u201cdipole\u201d) in the distribution of radio galaxies. This was 3.7 times stronger than predicted in the standard model of the universe.<\/p>\n \u201cIf our\u00a0solar system\u00a0is indeed moving this fast, we need to question fundamental assumptions about the large-scale structure of the universe,\u201d Professor Dominik J. Schwarz, cosmologist at Bielefeld University and co-author of the study, explained. <\/p>\n \u201cAlternatively, the distribution of radio galaxies itself may be less uniform than we have believed,\u201d they continued. \u201cIn either case, our current models are being put to the test.\u201d<\/p>\n The new study shows how incredibly precise observations of subtle shifts in the night sky can have widespread implications for our understanding of the cosmos. In this case, the new discovery could completely alter our understanding of the universe, as governed by the standard model of cosmology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As you read, you are flying through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. Not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1409,1744,85,46,141,1951,145,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-134472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-earth","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-solar-system","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-sun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}