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Yes I know that the sun and planets in the solar system travel fast with an average speed of 448,000 mph.

  • Are we going to the center of the galaxy? If so, does that mean our galaxy is getting smaller (because all objects will be centered)?
  • And do galaxies also travel fast to somewhere (like the solar system)?
Wahyu Kristianto
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The Sun (and the solar system with it) orbits around the center of our galaxy. This orbit is a bit more complex than eg Earth's orbit around the Sun, but the big picture view is about the same.

Our galaxy is moving relative to other galaxies in our local group, and there is also some movement towards the Great Attractor.

tuomas
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We are very far from the center and not really getting closer. We're in a branch of our galaxy arms. It takes a very long time to go around once and our star will only rotate the galaxy 18 times. The greater majority of stars will die way before they can reach Sagittarius A* (our black hole).

In terms of movements within our galaxy, we are also going "up and down" (if you were looking at the galaxy on the edge). There seems to be more interference with other objects when we are closer to the galactic plane. Finally, our solar system plane does not in any way match the galactic plane.

As mentioned by tuomas, the galaxy is also moving and other galaxies will merge (are merging) with our galaxy. However, at least at the moment, those events are not affecting us as much as Sagittarius A*.

Alexis Wilke
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    Sagittarius A* doesn't affect us much. It only contains roughly 4 millionths of the galaxy's mass. And in the very long term, many stars won't end up collapsing to the centre of the galaxy. Instead, the galaxy will "evaporate", as mentioned here: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/39324/16685 – PM 2Ring May 24 '22 at 07:20