600 km per sec

[glenc (Glen)]

How fast are you going now?

CMBR Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
Credit: DMR, COBE, NASA, Four-Year Sky Map
Explanation: Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In the above all-sky map from the COBE satellite, radiation in the Earth's direction of motion appears blueshifted and hence hotter, while radiation on the opposite side of the sky is redshifted and colder. The map indicates that the Local Group moves at about 600 kilometers per second relative to this primordial radiation. This high speed was initially unexpected and its magnitude is still unexplained. Why are we moving so fast? What is out there?
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080309.html

[erick (Eric)]

We got the pedal to the metal!

[Bobj]

Mind boggling speeds; is that why I'm thinning on top?? Hmmmmm?

[Zuts]

Hi,

I thought the latest theory held that there was not enough mass in the universe to stop the expansion and that in the end EVERYTHING would get further and further apart until our galaxy and maybe a few close ones would be all that was left in our part.

How does this gel with the fact that everything is also falling towards the great attractor and if this is so will all come together a few eons from now?

Paul

[programmer]

From my minuscule understanding, it's a number of galaxy clusters and superclusters surrounding the GA that are being attracted towards it, not the entire universe.

Edit: will be a lot more than a few eons too. An eon is on the geological time scale, not even the cosmological one!