Aussie astronomers redraw the galaxy >From AFP May 06, 2004 A 50-year-old map of the Milky Way will have to be redrawn after Australian astronomers made the astonishing discovery that our spiral galaxy has a huge, outflung arm, New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.
The vast gassy limb comprises an arc of hydrogen 77,000 light years long and several thousand light years thick, running along the Milky Way's outermost edge and sweeping around the four main arms that swirl out from the galaxy's core. As it is not in the visible part of the light spectrum, it cannot be seen by ordinary telescopes. Astronomers at the Australia National Telescope Facility made the discovery in a project to map the distribution of hydrogen gas across the galaxy. Most of the Milky Way is obscured by interstellar dust, but hydrogen emits radio waves which pass through the dust clouds and which thus make it detectable by radio telescope. "We see it over a huge area of sky," lead astronomer Naomi McClure-Griffiths said. She speculates the arm is a long gaseous tendril that was once joined up with another spiral limb but became detached. The study will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Astronomers are amazed that the feature had been overlooked, New Scientist says. "I was absolutely flabbergasted, it was quite clearly seen in some of the previous surveys but it was never pointed out or given a name," said Tom Dame at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. AFP
Could this be the Galactic Barrier from WNMHGB? Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There's also the possibility that our galaxy isn't a true spiral but a barred spiral.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
As long as the Aussie's dont name it something silly like they did all their animals.
Hear that, Andrew? Your animals have silly names!
There. I said it.
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
It's good to have that out in the open.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Now the healing can begin.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Seeing the thread title, I was thinking maybe they'd reversed galactic north like in those down-under/up-over maps.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mabye the galaxy spins in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere...
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I might have to ring some 'thing' in the northern galactic hemisphere... I was just told the toilet flush in the reverse direction in that area of the galaxy!
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I kinda think that's what Jason was referring to...
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Overexplaining the joke is kinda becoming Andrew's stock-in-trade.
Apparently too, the whole "toilets flush the other way in the southern hemesphire" is rubbish. The effect is true, but it isn't enough to produce anything notable. Lisa was wrong. The lying cow.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I wasn't overexplaining... i was... extending.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
You were making the same joke he had, but less subtly. And less originally.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Compared with Jason, of all people. That's pretty bad.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Although he did spell everything correctly, in this instance. Credit where credit is due...
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"Overexplaining the joke is kinda becoming Andrew's stock-in-trade."
When he gets it. B)
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: And less originally.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Overexplaining the joke is kinda becoming Andrew's stock-in-trade.
You love me so. Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
So not.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
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