Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Milky Way Is Being Pushed Across the Universe (cnn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the across-the-universe dept.

dryriver quotes a report from CNN: Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is being pushed across the universe by a large unseen force, according to new research. Although it may not seem like a friendly gesture, the newly discovered Dipole Repeller is actually helping our galaxy on its journey across the expanding universe. Researchers have known that the galaxy was moving at a relative speed for the past 30 years, but they didn't know why. "Now we find an emptiness in exactly the opposite direction, which provides a 'push' in the sense of a lack of pull," said Brent Tully, one of the study authors and an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu. "In a tug-of-war, if there are more people at one end, then the flow will be toward them and away from the weaker side." But this is no aimless journey of motion. Researchers have long believed that our galaxy was attracted to an area rich with dozens of clusters of galaxies 750 million light-years away, called the Shapley Concentration or Shapley Attractor. "We found a flow pattern reminiscent of streams of water that are organized by gravity to run downhill," Tully said. "In detail, we played a mathematical trick by inverting the sense of gravity to see where flows would terminate in this altered case. Flows ended at our Dipole Repeller."

4 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. It's the most powerful force in the universe... by Zaatxe · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... love!

    --
    So say we all
    1. Re:It's the most powerful force in the universe... by tigersha · · Score: 4, Funny

      You know why Hurricanes are named after women? When they arrive they are all wet and wild and when they leave they take your house, your card and everything else.

      So much for your theory then.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
  2. They are not that bad. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Funny
    This is the difference between humans and other advanced civilizations.

    If humans want to build a highway, they just build it and don't bother too much about the disruptions and dislocations caused. Despite what you might have heard about them sneakily filing a redevelopment plan and filing it in a dark basement guarded by leopards, in reality they move the entire galaxy away before embarking on such a project. We are just beginning to understand them.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. Re:Exactly how does this affect my life? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You've stumbled onto the wrong site, this is the site you are looking for: https://www.reddit.com/