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Milky Way Leaves Devastation in its Wake
soulctcher writes "An article on Yahoo! talks aout how a group of scientists now have evidence that the Milky Way galaxy, and others like it, are able to slice and dice their way through older galactic structures."
Err, of course? (We've all seen the screen saver, at least). Galaxies are physical objects, they obey physical rules. I actually saw a photograph of exactly this (colliding galaxies) some 15 years ago?
"Milky Way found to be bully on galactic playground"
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
It is ordinarily some 75,000 light-years from the Sun... The distant future looks bleak for Palomar 5
that means what we are seeing of Palomar 5 actually took place around 75,000 years ago. I am no astronamer or astro physisist but is it possible that Palomar 5 is already gone.
It slices! It dices! It cuts through old galaxies!
And it's only $19.95...BUT WAIT! If you act within the next 10 minutes, we'll include ANOTHER milky way with your order! That's right! Not one, but TWO Milky Way galaxies for only $19.95! Call now!
1-800-MILK-WAY - Please allow 6-8 billion years for delivery.
The true story of "the sky is falling". Not only is the sky falling, everything else is, also.
Always knew it was no coincidence those galaxies look like shurikens. It's those damn supra-galactic space ninjas, that's what it is. Somebody should do something about them, they'll hurt somebody.
-raph
Is the current distance, or an average distance? Or are they by some miracle the same? Since this cluster orbits nearly perpendicular to the galactic plane, the distance between our sun and the cloud should vary by up to the full diameter of the Milky Way. Not that any of us will be around for a full orbit.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
an image of a track of scattered stars that appears to stretch the same distance as a line-up of 20 full moons. And here I thouhgt that stars were much larger than moons.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
Would you mind giving a source for your tale of globular formation and evolution? I've never heard any such thing, and I'm working on my Ph.D. in astronomy.
Globulars are indeed old. But 40-50 billion years would make them about 25-35 billion years older than the universe itself. We thought we had issues when they appeared to be a couple billion years older, but even astrophysicists can't ignore 30 billion years.
I'll assume that that was a typo, though. Globulars, according to all I have studied, formed around our galaxy. Either with it or shortly before it started to form. What would a quasar have to do with this? Quasars, sexy as they are, are only big black holes on a binge of eating. These are not the kinds of places you form clusters of stars.
Finally, when a globular passes through the Milky Way's disk, nothing really happens. You can tell because almost all globulars are on disk-crossing orbits. They have to be, since most are orbit nearer the galactic center than we do (this is how Shapley worked out where the galactic center was, after all). And since they've made quite a few orbits in their lives and since they are still around, clearly passing through the disk isn't terribly disruptive. And it shouldn't be expected to be: stars don't collide when galaxies pass through each other. This is easy to understand because galaxies are made of mostly empty space. Stars can find their orbits disrupted, but they seldom collide.
I'd be curious to see where you heard all of this.
Let's hope the Palomareans are cool about this and aren't too fanatic about the continued existence of their cluster.... I would hate to see the Milky Way blown out of the sky out of "self defence".
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
YHBT YHL HAND.
---snip
Would you mind giving a source for your tale of globular formation and evolution? I've never heard any such thing, and I'm working on my Ph.D. in astronomy.
---snip
He's testing you to see if slashdot's infamous crack-smoking moderators will mod up a post that "looks" at a fast glance informative, without actually bothering to read the post. What's even more humorous are the people that respond to his posts seriously.
Besides, you may be working on your Ph. D. in astronomy, but that is only slightly related to the fascinating world of astrology he was talking about (look at the last paragraph of his post).
I first noticed him when he posted some completely bogus information about Unix interview questions, getting basic facts wrong.
Anyway, he wanted to see if people would mod up without thought, and guessing from his recent history of posts, he's doing pretty good.
Look at his log at www.pdrap.org
Of all the things wrong with that post, you pick that one to point out? :)
I figured it was full of it. But I alway prefer to give the benefit of the doubt and act as if he was simply misinformed/ignorant rather than a troll. I'm an incurable optimist about people.
The Milky Way destroys a star cluster, and lots of aliens rush in, inhabit the cluster, claim to have permanent physical damage and sue us for all we're worth.
read his website. http://www.pdrap.org/
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Not that we can actually see it, of course, other than with very powerful radiotelescopes....
It is ordinarily some 75,000 light-years from the Sun.
This statement is typical of some of the semi-logic that often permeates science journalism. Yes, I know that it can get a bit difficult to come up with a decent way of describing the situation, because of the "time travel" effect of astronomical distances, but surely they could have done better than that. "It is some 75,000 light years distant as we see it" would surely have explained it quite nicely.
You constantly tell us how we're destroying the Earth, global warming, oil is bad - now you're honestly expecting us to believe that our entire galaxy is destroying things?!
Cry me a river, you damn liberals.
;)
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
From what I hear, the Palomar system is just a bunch of trailer parks anyway.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
Since the popular press tends to use the least familiar name for any given astronomical object, I wondered, "Is there an NGC number for that?" Apparently not. The faint Palomar globular clusters were discovered on photographic plates from an all-sky survey by the 48-inch Schmidt camera. They're supposed to be pretty tough to see visually. Palomar 5 is in Serpens Caput at RA 15h16m Dec -0.1 if you have a big scope and you're up to it.
Galaxies are so relatively insubstantial (ie they are mostly empty space) that they can pass through each-other without a single collision. Orbits and such would most likely be messed up though.
Jeremy