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Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered

Posted by Unknown on from the mass-of-flying-mantrid-arm-drone-thingies dept.

astroengine writes "Astronomers have discovered something weird in the Milky Way's galactic bulge — a population of planetary nebula are all mysteriously pointing in the same direction. They noticed the mysterious alignment in the long axes of bipolar planetary nebulae. 'This really is a surprising find and, if it holds true, a very important one,' said Bryan Rees of the University of Manchester, co-author of the paper (PDF) to appear in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 'Many of these ghostly butterflies appear to have their long axes aligned along the plane of our galaxy.' The team of astronomers, who used data from Hubble and the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope (NTT) to survey 130 nebulae, posit that powerful magnetic fields may be behind the phenomenon."

5 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Lithium? by meerling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They have plenty of Lithium.

  2. Electric Universe by IMarvinTPA · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "The team of astronomers, who used data from Hubble and the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope (NTT) to survey 130 nebulae, posit that powerful magnetic fields may be behind the phenomenon."

    Hey, you mean that mainstream science may be coming around to what http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/ have been suggesting?

    Good luck!

    --
    Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
  3. More important then the fact they're pointing... by arpad1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... is what they're pointing at.

    Notice how that's left out of the article. Coincidence? I think not!

    --
    Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
  4. Re:Why is that surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Axial tilt on planets is tought to be hugely influenced by colisions when they were forming. I'm far from being a scientist, but I don't think you can use planets as a baseline.

  5. Re:Why is that surprising? by CreatureComfort · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The kicker is that the poles all seem to be perpendicular to what the presumed orientation of the rotation should have been.

    The trick, is figuring out why the poles were aligned with the galactic plane, and not perpendicular to it, which the spinning of the galactic gas cloud would suggest.

    --
    "Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
    Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar