Slashdot Mirror
Galactic Traffic Patterns
eldavojohn writes "Using Hubble, researchers have noticed traffic patterns of stars within our own galaxy. From the article, 'Researchers analyzed 47 Tucanae, the second largest cluster in the Milky Way's galactic neighborhood, and determined the cluster sorts out stars according to their masses. Due to the associated gravitational pull, heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and zip out to the cluster's periphery.' There is speculation that these movements of stars — although tiny — can have significant implications and possibly result in mass segregation."
It's actually an equiparition of energy thing. Due to all of the gravitational interactions that occur in the cluster, all of the stars should have the same total energy (potential + kinetic). Therefore, at a given area in the cluster, the heavier stars (which are around .80 solar masses) should be moving slower than the lighter stars (which are .2 to .4 solar masses).
The amazing thing is that they were able to determine this by measuring 1/100th of a pixel shifts in Hubble images. Needless to say, it's hard to do astrometry that precisely.
I'd say that today's Democrats have about as much in common with Democrats then (Reconstruction through the late 1950's) as today's Republicans have in common with Abe Lincoln's Republican party.