posted on Nov, 20 2004 @ 02:35 PM
kryptikcreations hit the nail on the head.
First - the earth is rotating 24/hr per day and orbiting the sun ~365 days/year. Then we have the fact that the solar system is orbiting in the Milky
Way at a velocity of about 155 miles/sec (250 km/sec). We are in the Local Group of Galaxies and the Milky Way is moving about 300 km/sec (nearly the
speed of light!!) towards the constellation Virgo. The Milky Way Galaxy is moving in concert with the other galaxies in the Local Group - the Local
Group is defined as those nearby galaxies that are moving in concert with each other, independent of the "Hubble flow" expansion. I'm not even
confident we can accurately pin down those orbits since we have the recent little (big) issue of the Pioneer probes being off ever so slightly from
their calculated positions.
Some updated data. Not a very accurate measurement and these guys are using the best tools available:
"Our new figure of 226 million years [time for solar systems to orbit the Galaxy] is accurate to within 6 percent," Mark Reid, a Harvard-Smithsonian
astronomer and leader of the team that made the measurements, said in a statement. Reid and his team made the measurement using the Very Long Baseline
Array, a system of 10 large radio-telescope antennae placed 5,000 miles across the United States, from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Hawaii.
As an aside, these data which people often forget about makes alien visitations a bit iffy. Within our galaxy is possible at close to the speed of
light but between galaxies would be tough as we are all moving away from each other at a massive rate and would mean that superluminal travel would be
necessary and even then, the positioning would be interesting as you would have to aim for a point where your destination WILL be....
Therefore, any time travel device would have to have some nifty inertial navigation that takes all of these movements into account or would have to
rely on using pulsars or other cosmic sources to detect position during the time displacement. Titor's device supposedly checked position moving
back in time but the calculations are not trivial, especially in real time and he even said early tests left the vehicle in the air - heck the damn
thing would be off in deep space somewhere not just up in the air. Then we have to consider any changes to the whole system. A strong solar
flare/CME could move the earth a minuscule amount in our orbit, which would throw the whole thing off if you were using inertial navigation and
Then we have the biology aspect. All of our little bugs mutate over time and any traveler from any significant time difference would be totally
exposed and open for infections and disease. Since we are moving forward our bodies adapt slowly with the mutations but the diseases from the distant
past (or future) would be so different as to be a major threat and would require a sealed pressure suits or fancy drugs/vaccinations to ward off
illness. He should have had the biggest case of Montezumatitor's revenge with his first drink of water and a pin prick probably would have killed
[edit on 20-11-2004 by UofCinLA]