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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.
These globular clusters are very old. The one they are talking about was probably captured by our galaxy billions of years ago, probably 40-50 billion years ago. They are formed by the interactions of two or more quasars, and they travelled billions of light years across our universe where they were captured by the gravitational pull of our galaxy. This one was just unlucky enough to get stuck in an orbit where it crosses the plane of the milky way. One thing that's interesting is that every time it crosses the milky way thousands of stars collide and explode into supernova. That's part of the reason for the trail extending from the cluster to the milky way - it's just plain old star guts blown out from the supernova.
The only bad part about this is that Palomar 5 isn't easy to see. You need at least a 12 inch telescope and very very dark skies, which most people don't have. The thing that I like most about astrology is that there are so many amazing things out there that sometimes it's hard to believe. But it's true!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
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.
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.
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