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Milky Way Heavier Than Thought, and Spinning Faster
An anonymous reader writes "The Milky Way is spinning much faster and has 50 per cent more mass than previously believed. This means the Milky Way is equivalent in size to our neighbor Andromeda — instead of being the little sister in the local galaxy group, as had been believed. One implication of this new finding is that we may collide with Andromeda sooner than we had thought, in 2 or 3 billion years instead of 5."
At least now we don't have to worry about our sun going nova, we'll all die in an intergalactic traffic accident first.
What about really, really heavy thoughts?
..on my Zune
Mass != weight
For a while there I was worried it had dropped down to 1 billion years.
Well that's good news and bad news all rolled into. The bad news is we'll be crashing into Andromeda sooner. The good news is that our galaxy has more mass therefore our galaxy will win, since the more massive object always wins in physics... Oh.
One thing that is great about science is that it does have a way of eventually finding errors and correcting them in the face of new evidence.
As far as galactic collisions are concerned, we are in no immediate danger. 2-3 Gy vs 5 is an academic exercise, as the Sun will most likely increase its output sufficiently by then to boil off the Earth's oceans anyway,
Besides, the density of a galaxy (outside of the core) is so low that the chance of a stellar or planetary collision is negligable anyway.
Or, by then, we would have the technology to detect it and either deflect it or GTFO of the way anyhow.
Still, it is nice to know we're not in the pipsqueak galaxy. Hoorah!?!?
"These measurements use the traditional surveyor's method of triangulation and do not depend on any assumptions based on other properties, such as brightness," Menten said. The direct measurements "are revising our understanding of the structure and motions of our Galaxy."
...this is where we find out that space is convex in some directions and concave in others and not "flat" anywhere, right?
Well, that'll show those Andromedans not to attack "smaller" galaxies. Now who's laughing! We will plunder their mass (while watching colateral ejected mass fly out).
Face it, everyone puts on a little more mass during the holidays. And with hydrogen being the most common element in the galaxy, it's no wonder she's a bit bloated. But she'll start on a program of jogging around the local supercluster, and get back into shape in no time.
oh well.. still leaves plenty of time to debate which is the most robust backup method after all then?
Thought I was drunk.
Good to know it was the milky way spinning all too fast.
NO SIG
The Earth's Solar System is located some 28,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. At that distance, the new measurements show that the galaxy is rotating at a speed of 965,600 km/h, compared to previous estimates of 804,672 km/h, the astronomers report.
965,600 km/h = 268 222.222 m/s or about 1/1117th of the speed of light...
At that distance, the new measurements show that the galaxy is rotating at a speed of 965,600 km/h, compared to previous estimates of 804,672 km/h, the astronomers report.
Forgive the possibly stupid question, but since km/h is a measure of linear speed, is that saying that we're traveling at that speed or is the edge of the Milky Way moving that fast?
But how do you calculate the rate of rotation and mass of a galaxy that you're in? It's mind blowing that we can actually do that.
I dreamed of Freud: What does this mean?
Because it's on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJRc37D2ZZY
Ugh. Sounds like scientists just discovered my last blind date.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
I did a study.
1. Three Musketeers is the most voluminous.
2. Snickers is the densest.
3. Milky Way resulted from collision between high energy caramel particles into a Three Musketeers bar. And a new sub layer formed under the chocolate strata. The caramel particles could not penetrate the nougat.
4. Milky Way Dark has the most dark matter.
5. Mars has the biggest nuts.
WhatMeWorry!!
I think the article oversimplifies. The Milky Way doesn't rotate as one single piece. It's made up of billions of stars (duh!) which revolve around the center at different velocities. So, the question is, is the quoted speed the speed at which the Sun revolves around the galactic center or the average speed of the arms (which move much slower than the stars)? Maybe more later if I can find the paper on arxiv.org
... should have used low fat milk...
Oh no! I better not forget to turn of the oven!
dont_forget
... or maybe I'd better just slow down on the brandy.
Whoa, for a moment I thought you said _million_ years. No need to panic, people.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Is that Milky "Way Heavier" Than Thought or is it "Milky Way" Heavier Than Thought?
Does this mean we should also re-evaluate the Snickers galaxy? And will there be a price increase, or just a "Now With 50% More!" sticker?
Rule 34 on the milky way!
Twice as heavy! Talk about getting it wrong.
It's only a matter of time before the earth's age is readjusted to 6000 years!
I record my sleeptalking
Hopefully we'll have Duke Nukem Forever by then...
Then again, probably not.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Do you mean there is a problem with gravity in the future?
Fight Spammers!
The Milky Way!
BTW: you should see Luis Buñuel's movie of the same name:
Incontrollable Beauty
NO SIG
Whoa, dude, this Milky is way heavier than thought.
Dude, but how much does thought way?
If that galaxy is more dense than ours, then it would also have higher gravity, correct? So it is possible for Sum of Mass to be nearly equal, yet our sum of weight would be much lower. I guess if all galaxies are orbiting some super distant super mass, and thus we had some weight related orbital decay, this discussion might matter?
Does this mean they'll take the candy out of the vending machines since it's obviously leading to obesity on a galactic scale?
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
i think someone forgot to post anonymously..
some how i just know this is because of global warming!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"the Milky Way is rotating at a speed of 161,000 km/h faster than previously thought."
Units converted from radians/mole
Nah, check his sig and his logon. He's retarded, not forgetful.
You know an astronomer has found an unusually accurate measuring technique when the error bars get as low as 50%. Now that best value for the mass of the Milky Way has 1-sigma error bars of 50%, I'm glad to be able to say with 95% statistical confidence that its mass is greater than zero. On the other hand, for the "glass is half empty" folks, there's still a 5% chance that its mass is negative.
Find free books.
2-3 billion years? I'll never make it!
Milky Way heavier than thought? Maybe it's your mom.
Zing!
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
OH MY GOD, I WAS GOING TO HAVE KIDS, I was gonna have a great life! I may win the lottery next week! How am I going to live knowing that my great*10^7 grandkids may be killed in a tragic intergalactic traffic accident?
OK, so now that the galaxy is heavier/massive. Do we still need dark matter to explain how it works?
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It seems like whether the Milky Way or Andromeda is bigger changes every couple years, as this paper or that paper claims a measurement showing one or the other is actually a lot bigger than we all thought.
We used to think the Milky Way was bigger (and before that, thought Andromeda was bigger for the longest time), and then recently we got some evidence that Andromeda was actually bigger after all. And then there's this piece about the Milky Way actually be bigger after all.
Me? I'm going to sit back and let the scientists figure it out for a few more decades before deciding. All we really know is that Andromeda and the Milky Way are by far the two biggest galaxies in our Local Group, and they're probably close enough in size to make figuring out which one is really bigger a bit tricky.
Now I see why they are running all those commercials about 3Musketeers being 45% lighter.
Aw, crud. There go my plans.
Statistically speaking, you will die.
If you don't plan on what happens after that, someone else will (no pun intended).
Planning on something isn't the same as wishing for it.
As for me, WRT "the singularity"? If I could upload "myself", would I? I don't know. Probably. But if you think about it, "you" don't get to go, only your "branch/copy" does. Are you that selfless? What if it costs money? Are you willing to pay for "his" immortality? AFAIK, the first sentence stands alone.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Clarification: "the collision" is referring to the galactic collision, not stellar collision.
Table-ized A.I.
I've been noticing how everyone is getting heavier (except Steve Jobs). Apparently, this epidemic has reached galactic proportions. Of course, we should have suspected the Milky Way to be fattening.
Apparently the fluffy nugat filling isn't as fluffy as previously claimed.
If it's not Consolidated Lint,it's just fuzz!
Speed: if you know a constellation of stars is in our galaxy, then you can track it's movement speed. Especially since we have software that'll give the position of constellations right back to egyptian times, etc.
Mass: they're working this out based on the rotation speed.
Remember that the reason dark matter supposedly exist is because scientists calculated the weight of the visible matter in the entire universe and said "well that doesn't match up with the energy/gravity" so they make up some imaginary object to make up the difference. And then a couple years later OMG I guess we were 50% off of the mass of the milky way, oops. If they can't even measure our galaxy properly, then dark matter probably doesn't exist because they're just calculating it wrong. Either that or it's literally regular matter that has almost no light bouncing off it cuz it's too far away from a light source.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Does that mean that we age slower compared to the people in Andromeda?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
NEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRDD.
Like a title, of its more MASSY sounds nicer.
(theres more matter in exitance) yea yeah we know.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The Inhibitors have to speed up a bit.
100 billion stars * 5 usefull planets?
500 billion * 200 trillion dollars = WERE RICH!
We can offer plots at 2% rates.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Get it right!
greg, REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!
Not heavier.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Any word on the weight and/or rotational velocity of other candy bars?
Does anyone have a citation for an actual peer-reviewed article on this? Because I'm not particularly inclined to believe this random article from somewhere just on its own . . . and it doesn't seem to include a citation to anything.
As "fun size" and "bite size" and decreased density of the malt nougat reduce our bar per dollar, its nice to know that its not as bad as it seems.
I for one welcome our caramel-covered malt-nougat overlords!
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
nt
We need new lyrics for the Universe song...
"...the galaxy is rotating at a speed of 965,600 km/h, compared to previous estimates of 804,672 km/h, the astronomers report."
would this mean if i flew out too the rim of our galaxy and stayed still on one spot the stars and planets would pass me by because of the spin and being in a empty space? or has the empty space got mass aswell and would it keep me on the relative same spot too the stars? like floating along the edges in a circle i mean...
/dev/null
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Remember, the Solar System is only a theory, just like gravity and chemistry. We need to start teaching kids about the alternatives!
Does this change any lyrics in the Galaxy Song?
I dunno, I can think some pretty heavy thoughts....
I think not. So I don't get it. Why does greater mass than we thought, mean impact with another object sooner than we thought?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
It's time to go on a diet again.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
How can they give us a speed in KM/h? Maybe they mean the earth and our solar system is traveling at a certain speed. But when you are referring to rotational speed you measure in degrees/s.... which will be a very small number for something as large as a galaxy.
If you are near the center of the galaxy you will be traveling a lot slower than if you are at the edge!
Doesn't the idea of galaxies colliding conflict with Hubble's discovery that the Universe is expanding? I thought that no matter where you were in the universe, everything was moving away from you. I remember examples with a balloon and also raisin bread. If Hubble is right, then shouldn't Andromeda be moving away from any vantage point in the Milky Way (and anywhere else in the universe for that matter)?
Why would you say the Milky Way is heavier than thought when it's mass is what you where talking about.
So, how does this 'bollocks up' Eric Idle's Galaxy Song?
@peetm
So, who else here thinks that all of the space around us with it's planets etc. is just a tiny molecule of some really big "thing". Just imagine that maybe there is a real giant sitting behind his computer...typing on his keyboard which in fact is composed of what we know as our galaxy? Did I explain my question clearly enough? :) anyone else here shares my opinion...?