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Strange Setup: Andromeda's Satellite Galaxies All Lined Up
space.com ^ | 01/23/06 | Ker Than

Posted on 01/24/2006 6:31:08 PM PST by KevinDavis

An unusually high number of galaxies are aligned along a single plane running through the center of the giant Andromeda galaxy. Scientists don’t have a theory to explain why.

Galactic cannibalism or dark matter may be responsible, researchers say.

The Andromeda galaxy is located at a distance of 2.5 million light-years away and is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. Like our own galaxy, Andromeda is surrounded by numerous dwarf galaxy satellites. Many of these satellites are within 1.3 million light-years or less of the galaxy’s main disk.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, Eva Grebel and Andrew Koch from the University of Basel in Switzerland found that nine out of Andromeda’s fourteen dwarf galaxy satellites reside in a single plane. The plane is about 52,000 light-years wide and is aligned perpendicular to Andromeda’s own galactic plane, within which the galaxy’s stars orbit about the center.

(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: andromeda; galaxies; space
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To: pangaea6

Is the moon in the seventh house? And is Jupiter aligned with Mars?


21 posted on 01/24/2006 7:53:49 PM PST by cajungirl (no)
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To: KevinDavis

Better ping SG-1 and tell them to hold off on the next mission.


22 posted on 01/24/2006 8:00:15 PM PST by toddlintown (Lennon takes six bullets to the chest, Yoko is standing right next to him and not one f'ing bullet?)
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To: KevinDavis

Thanks for posting this, it's a strange universe.


23 posted on 01/24/2006 8:05:26 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Monthly Donor spoken Here. Go to ... https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Grim

It looks like an inter-galactic version of Connect Four


24 posted on 01/24/2006 8:16:24 PM PST by BRITinUSA
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To: xrp
"Mr LaForge, we'll need warp 9.999999996! ENGAGE!"

You need to watch Stargate. The Prometheus or Daedalus could make the trip in a week or so. You gotta love that Asgard intergalactic hyperdrive...


25 posted on 01/24/2006 8:19:26 PM PST by GreenLanternCorps (I'm pink, therefore I'm Spam.)
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To: cajungirl
Is the moon in the seventh house? And is Jupiter aligned with Mars?

That means we're in the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!!!!!!!

26 posted on 01/24/2006 8:40:00 PM PST by The Cajun
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To: GreenLanternCorps

Yeah but what I want to know is that since Andromeda is the nearest big galaxy to our own is it the one the former Canadian cabinet minister suggested that President Bush would start an intergalactic war with?


27 posted on 01/24/2006 9:26:12 PM PST by xp38
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To: inquest
Dark matter? Dark magic sounds more like it. Satellite galaxies riding along the polar plane. Man, that's just downright Satanic.

Yeah. "Dark Matter" has always sounded like so much hand-waving to me. I think they are missing something more fundamental than matter.

28 posted on 01/24/2006 9:35:53 PM PST by zeugma (Warning: Self-referential object does not reference itself.)
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To: KevinDavis

Evidence of cosmic engineering?


29 posted on 01/24/2006 9:53:30 PM PST by FierceDraka ("Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." - Capt. Mal Reynolds)
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To: Grim

bookmk ping for my wonderful son , and ....

.... perhaps something will get trapped in my nerve tissue mass


30 posted on 01/24/2006 9:59:02 PM PST by Dad yer funny
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To: Moonman62
ET engineering.

You beat me to it. ;-D

But what purpose would placing satellite galaxies in a perpendicular orbit serve other than for aesthetic purposes?

But the motivations of any race sufficiently advanced to pull off such a feat would probably be beyond the ken of us poor hairless apes.

31 posted on 01/24/2006 10:00:23 PM PST by FierceDraka ("Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." - Capt. Mal Reynolds)
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To: toddlintown
Better ping SG-1 and tell them to hold off on the next mission.

Indeed.


32 posted on 01/24/2006 10:02:26 PM PST by FierceDraka ("Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." - Capt. Mal Reynolds)
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To: FierceDraka

Maybe it's their way of telling anyone in the neighborhood that they exist.


33 posted on 01/24/2006 10:16:23 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
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To: KevinDavis
Galactic cannibalism or dark matter may be responsible, researchers say.

The usual suspects.

34 posted on 01/24/2006 10:37:35 PM PST by TChad
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To: KevinDavis; vannrox; Swordmaker

Astronomers up against the "great wall"
William R. Corliss
From Science Frontiers No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf067/sf067a08.htm


35 posted on 01/24/2006 10:50:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv (In the long run, there is only the short run.)
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To: KevinDavis

WE'RE DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!


36 posted on 01/24/2006 11:07:34 PM PST by Lancer_N3502A
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