Milky Way's nearest neighbour revealed

New Scientist ^ | 10/3/03 | Stuart Clark

[PhilipFreneau]

>> The nearest galaxy to our own Milky Way has been revealed. It is so close that the Milky Way is gradually consuming it by pulling in its stars. But it will be few billion years before it is entirely swallowed up.

Reminds me of a call-in show where a frantic female caller asked Carl Sagan, "How long before sun expands and engulfs the earth?" Sagan replied, "About 10 billion years". "Thank God," said the caller. "I thought you said 10 million."

[COBOL2Java]

Here's hoping that we NEVER encounter a civilization that's far more advanced than us!

You have something against superior civilizations?? Hmmmm???

[ThinkPlease]

Chances are, probably not. Most of the stars in this area of space have the same composition, which leads us to believe that those stars were born at or nearly the same time, and in the same region of space. We can detect interloper stars pretty quickly, because they are not moving in orderly ellipses like all of the others.

[LibWhacker]

Interesting, thanks. It's a good thing then that all the SETI searches are, out of necessity, concentrating first on local stars; i.e., we'd expect planetary systems with roughly the same composition as the Solar System to have a greater chance of harboring life than planetary systems around some weird star, right?

[KarlInOhio]

It is so close that the Milky Way is gradually consuming it by pulling in its stars. But it will be few billion years before it is entirely swallowed up.

The Milky Way is running down other galaxies like a interstellar SUV < /sarcasm>

[ThinkPlease]

It's a good thing then that all the SETI searches are, out of necessity, concentrating first on local stars; i.e., we'd expect planetary systems with roughly the same composition as the Solar System to have a greater chance of harboring life than planetary systems around some weird star, right?

That's exactly correct. The SETI search is concentrating on stars with the same age and composition as Earth for those very reasons.

[RightWhale]

"In computer models we have run, some stars do seem to rain down close to the Solar System," says Irwin.

Why worry about killer asteroids or solar flares when you can worry about falling stars from another galaxy?

[Conservomax]

Wow, Interesting.
And here I was think Milky way's nearest neighbor was a snickers bar.

[Conservomax]

Wow, Interesting.
And here I was thinking Milky way's nearest neighbor was a snickers bar.

[blam]

War of Galaxies bump.

[gcruse]

Do these publishers really believe that we need to be
frightened into finding an interest in their news?

If it bleeds, it leads.