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Milky Way Heavier Than Thought, and Spinning Faster

Posted by kdawson on from the bulking-up dept.

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."

4 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know you're trying to be funny but when the two galaxies do meet, the odds are no stars will collide.

  2. Re:The good news by Deadstick · · Score: 5, Informative

    the future cockroach decedents

    They'll be the descendants. We'll be the decedents.

    rj

  3. Re:From TFA by thomasferraro · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thank you, makes much more sense now. Agence France-Presse strikes again. They converted mph to km/hr VERY precisely.

    965,600 km/h = 600,000 mph
    804,672 km/h = 500,000 mph

    Abstract of presentation (10aPT Tue Jan 6, if you are in Long Beach CA) is at http://tinyurl.com/9d5rec.

  4. Re:hello... by l3v1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, mass will only have weight in a gravitational field, where indeed more mass means more weight. Otherwise, more mass only means more inertia.

    --
    I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.