nebula Posted November 22, 2009 Group: Royal Member Followers: 10 Topic Count: 5,823 Topics Per Day: 0.75 Content Count: 45,870 Content Per Day: 5.94 Reputation: 1,897 Days Won: 83 Joined: 03/22/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 11/19/1970 Share Posted November 22, 2009 Me: I wonder if stuff like this can account for some of the "dark matter"? I wonder why that wasn't mentioned in the article? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way * 22 November 2009 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. To have survived, it must contain much more matter than previously thought, in order to provide enough gravity to hold it together. Calculations by Matthew Nichols and Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney, Australia, indicate that it has about 100 times the previously estimated mass (arxiv.org/abs/0911.0684). Many more such dark galaxies may be out thereMovie Camera, says Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley. Simulations of galaxy formation suggest a galaxy the size of the Milky Way should feature about 1000 dwarf galaxiesMovie Camera, but only a few dozen have been found so far. Some of the missing dwarfs may be dark galaxies that are all but invisible, he says. Source More info, if you are interested Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyguy Posted November 22, 2009 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 373 Topics Per Day: 0.07 Content Count: 3,331 Content Per Day: 0.59 Reputation: 71 Days Won: 10 Joined: 10/15/2008 Status: Offline Birthday: 12/24/1965 Share Posted November 22, 2009 I'm not worried about it. God is in control. Interesting article though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted November 22, 2009 Group: Royal Member Followers: 3 Topic Count: 683 Topics Per Day: 0.12 Content Count: 11,128 Content Per Day: 2.00 Reputation: 1,352 Days Won: 54 Joined: 02/03/2009 Status: Offline Birthday: 12/07/1952 Share Posted November 22, 2009 Dark matter is such interesting stuff, no one except God knows what it is yet, but it takes up most of the universe. How cool is that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCMS Posted November 22, 2009 Group: Members Followers: 1 Topic Count: 11 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 48 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 12/21/2006 Status: Offline Birthday: 08/14/1984 Share Posted November 22, 2009 Extremely interesting article! Thank goodness God is in control! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgedrw81 Posted November 23, 2009 Group: Royal Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 7 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 1,823 Content Per Day: 0.33 Reputation: 36 Days Won: 2 Joined: 04/10/2009 Status: Offline Share Posted November 23, 2009 I'm not worried about it. God is in control. Right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellarose Posted November 23, 2009 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 5 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 388 Content Per Day: 0.07 Reputation: 2 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/03/2009 Status: Offline Birthday: 10/02/1989 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Nebula, do you think you could possibly explain the vibe of the article and implications? I'm probably just too tired but I didn't understand it, lol. For instance, when are we meant to be colliding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nebula Posted November 23, 2009 Group: Royal Member Followers: 10 Topic Count: 5,823 Topics Per Day: 0.75 Content Count: 45,870 Content Per Day: 5.94 Reputation: 1,897 Days Won: 83 Joined: 03/22/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 11/19/1970 Author Share Posted November 23, 2009 What I am understanding is that this is simply a gas cloud of hydrogen. It's not really a galaxy, they're just saying that because it is large enough to be a galaxy. (Well, they're also calling it that based on how they believe galaxies form...the hydrogen just never coalesced to form anything.) It sounds like the cloud is already "crashing into" our galaxy. But keep in mind that this isn't like a car crash. There is a whole lot of space between stars (the nearest star to us is about 4.2 light years away . . . that's a lot of room for hydrogen ions to pass through!). Collectively, yes there is a lot of gravity involved, but in a local area (i.e. a solar system), I'm not sure how much a gravity pull or shifting of things we'd have to worry about. Does that clarify things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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