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Milky Way Gets Bigger

Posted by michael on from the now-30%-more-free dept.

FU_Fish writes "Australian scientists have discovered a new arm reaching out from our beloved Milky Way. The arm is 60,000 light years away from the center of the galaxy and roughly 6,500 light years thick. I guess my dream of visiting every star in our galaxy just got a bit tougher."

19 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Don't tell Fatties! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, so Al Roker hasn't actually lost weight - it's the space around him that's gotten bigger?

    1. Re:Don't tell Fatties! by Raptorman2k · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't forget Oprah...however she tends to envelope said space from time to time...

  2. That Ain't No Bird's-Eye View! by PateraSilk · · Score: 4, Informative

    The picture they chose for the article looks more like a typical shot of the core in Sagittarius from Earth. "Bird's-eye view" in this context would probably mean "seen from galactic north".

    --
    Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
    1. Re:That Ain't No Bird's-Eye View! by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Funny

      Every once in a while, the Great Bird of the Galaxy goes for a little drive in the country.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  3. Hubble by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, I was just thinking. Brainstorming really. I had a thought about a real life use for moon colonization.

    Mount a telescope on the dark side of the moon.

    Shielded from the light of the sun, and mounted to a big solid object. The moon.

    Mapping the skies would be simple. Point the telescope straight out, take pictures every few minutes. Do that for a few months and you have detailed pictures of all the in a donut shaped space around you. Change angles and repeat. Although, the best you could ever do is a big donut shaped area. Straight up and straight down would be hard. But I am sure it'd be worth it.

    --
    Pretty Pictures!
    1. Re:Hubble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      (pedantic...)
      Don't you mean the far side of the moon? All parts of the moon get sunlight.

    2. Re:Hubble by shane_rimmer · · Score: 4, Informative

      The dark side of the moon gets plenty of sunlight when the moon is between Earth and Sol.

      Look here for more information about why we always see the same part of the moon

    3. Re:Hubble by Russ+Steffen · · Score: 4, Informative

      It actually doesn't matter all that much. Since there's no atmosphere there, you can still do a lot of optical observations during the lunar day. Only objects that appear near the sun would be off limits. The real advantage to the moon, though, would be for radio astronomy - the far side is quite well shielded from earth's radio noise.

    4. Re:Hubble by Noren · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Ignoring the "dark side"/ far side confusion others have pointed out:

      In addition to the general advantages of placing a telescope on the moon (no atmosphere), the far ('dark') side of the moon has a unique advantage: it's always shielded from Earth, which is a huge radio source. For this reason, the far side of the moon would be an ideal spot to build a radio telescope.

  4. Does this mean by Kethinov · · Score: 3, Funny

    that there's actually a part of the galaxy Star Trek hasn't explored yet? Good! Time for a new series instead of the prequel! ;)

    --
    You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
  5. Has slashdot become the Internet Inquirer or what? by fejikso · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A bit offtopic but, I don't think the ./ audience needs a title like "Milky Way gets bigger" instead of "New arm of Milky Way galaxy discovered" to be interested in the article.

  6. Ha! by Sandmann · · Score: 5, Funny

    In your face, Andromeda!

  7. Visit every star in the Galaxy? by beerman2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmm... Let's see...

    That's about 100 billion stars (best estimate), so if you started today, and lived another 100 years (lucky you), you'd have to visit about 1 billion stars a year. That would mean about 3 million stars a day or about 100,000 stars every hour. So you'd only have to visit about 30 stars every second. How hard could that be?

    1. Re:Visit every star in the Galaxy? by Sanga · · Score: 2, Funny

      You age very less when travelling close to light speeds.

      Factor that in ... and the poster might return to Earth in time for the bug free version of Windows :-)

    2. Re:Visit every star in the Galaxy? by beerman2k · · Score: 2, Funny

      FTL travel discovered Boy, I bet he'd be really pissed to get back home and find out the'd invented that.

  8. Hitchhiker's Guide by hound3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I guess my dream of visiting every star in our galaxy just got a bit tougher."

    Yes, but are you going to insult everybody in it? Individually, personally, one by one, and by alphabetical order?

    I miss Douglas Adams

  9. Headline by Man+of+E · · Score: 3, Funny
    Milky Way gets bigger? Reminds me of the newspaper headlines back in 1492 (the good old days):

    Path to India discovered! The Earth gets rounder!

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une sig
  10. Press always gets it wrong... by Jump · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is not a birds-eye view. It's the view of the Milkyway from earth when you look towards the Center with Infrared Telescopes. If you want to see a real bird-eye view of the Milkyway spiral pattern you have to go here.

  11. Dark spots on the moon by lommer · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, at the North and South poles of the moon there are craters that don't recieve any sunlight at the bottom, ever. Some people have advocated putting optical telescopes there. Others have discussed the proposition of building a circumlunar railway with the telescope mounted on it so that the telescope could always be on the dark side of the moon (the moon's rotation is a lot slower and it's a lot smaller, making the distance and speeds actually feasible.)

    Despite those, the benefits of a radio telescope that you pointed out are still probably the most promising benefits of a lunar presence.