Nyrath Posted November 24, 2009 Report Share Posted November 24, 2009 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427354.200-dark-galaxy-crashing-into-the-milky-way.html THE Milky Way's neighbourhood may be teeming with invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own. In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now it appears the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself. Called Smith's cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy. What's more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago Once it has halfway penetrated the Milky Way, the stars will be right. Can the Galactic Patrol defeat the menace of the Cthulhu galaxy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted November 25, 2009 Report Share Posted November 25, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way Hunh. Now, it's Stealth Galaxies. That's all we need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted November 25, 2009 Report Share Posted November 25, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way I hate it when people drive without their lights on at night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherSkip Posted November 25, 2009 Report Share Posted November 25, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way I wonder if these can be used to refresh our stars, possibly adding much to the lifespan of our solar system.. OTOH if this regularly occurs then stopping it may be a very bad thing, especially if it reduces the time between a star running and it going cold. Dam well could change all sorts of claculations and assumptions we have about a stras duration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John-Walton Posted November 26, 2009 Report Share Posted November 26, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way I had thought the dark matter theories had been disproved as mathematical handwaving and hogwash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted November 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way I had thought the dark matter theories had been disproved as mathematical handwaving and hogwash. The matter is currently unsettled. There are some astronomical observations that are anomalous. The majority of astrophysicists espouse the dark matter hypothesis to explain these anomalies. However, since detection of dark matter has proved elusive, a small but vocal minority of astrophysicists maintain that there must be another explanation. Time will tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted November 27, 2009 Report Share Posted November 27, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427354.200-dark-galaxy-crashing-into-the-milky-way.html Humm... So, this is what it feels to live in a colliding galaxy, after all. I had always wondered... I wonder if these can be used to refresh our stars, possibly adding much to the lifespan of our solar system.. OTOH if this regularly occurs then stopping it may be a very bad thing, especially if it reduces the time between a star running and it going cold. Dam well could change all sorts of claculations and assumptions we have about a stras duration. I'd doubt it. If a star is to be "resplenished", it would be by gravitational "drain" of another star during a close encounter. This could mean our sun would live longer, but it would probably also mean that the solar system would be entirely disrupted. I don't think earth being projected into interstellar cold void to be such a good thing; we'd have to live like in Space 1999... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way we'd have to live like in Space 1999... THAT is a horrifying prospect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way THAT is a horrifying prospect. It sure is! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted November 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way Somebody said that the (original) Battlestar Galactica was an attempt to adapt the movie Star Wars to TV, while Space 1999 was an attempt to adapt the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey to TV. You may notice a certain similarity between Clavius base and Moonbase Alpha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panpiper Posted November 30, 2009 Report Share Posted November 30, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way I wonder if these can be used to refresh our stars' date=' possibly adding much to the lifespan of our solar system..[/quote'] Actually if you 'add' mass to an existing star, you will shorten it's lifetime. A star's lifetime is inversely proportional to it's mass. Ir you want to extend a star's lifetime, remove mass from it. (I could actually go into the physics and engineering as to how to do that, but that's another thread.) Adding a million suns worth of hydrogen to the space in our galaxy would however not add any significant mass to any existing suns/stars. What it does do is make new star formation that much easier and extends the life of the galaxy itself, not so much the individuals stars within it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted November 30, 2009 Report Share Posted November 30, 2009 Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way It's not a galaxy so far as we can tell. Just a cloud of hydrogen. It's been suggested that when it really starts colliding with our galaxy, there will be a surge of star formation, so while it won't extend the life of any stars, it will extend the life of the galaxy as a whole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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