Posted on 02/03/2011 7:24:52 PM PST by Red Badger
An international team of astronomers led by Mary Williams from the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (AIP) has discovered a new stream of stars in our Milky Way: the "Aquarius Stream," named after the constellation of Aquarius. The stream of stars is a remnant of a smaller galaxy in our cosmic neighbourhood, which has been pulled apart by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way about 700 million years ago. The discovery is a result of the measurement of the velocities of 250,000 stars with the RAVE Survey based at the Australian Astronomical Observatory's UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW, Australia."I have a stream": with these words the 33-year old scientist from New Zealand enthusiastically presented her discovery to the audience of an international conference. The Aquarius stream was indeed hard to find. Contrary to practically all known streams of stars it is located within the galactic disk. Within the disk, the high concentration of stars of the Milky Way are blocking our way and the stream is indistinguishable from the rest of the stars in its shape. "It was right on our doorstep" Williams says, "but we just couldn't see it." Using RAVE data, the astronomer has now measured the radial velocity of 12,000 stars in that region for the first time. In this way she found that 15 stars show a different velocity pattern than the others, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
;’)
Pinging everyone who made a serious comment on this thread to thank you for your input.
I read these any time I see them and rarely comment because of my ignorance on the subject. I consider it all part of God’s grand design and no, I do not think the universe is only 6,000 years old.
Somebody I’ve pinged has the “godsgravesglyphs” ping list, please add me and I promise that, while I may not add to the serious discussions, I will do my best to not add any “joke” comments. If astronomy is a different list, put me on that one too. If and when I ask a question, it may sound stupid but it won’t be intentional.
By the way, my grand daughter got me interested in this a few years back, she’s a member here too, as are 2 of my sons, we are an F.R. family.
Thanks, I’ll add you to GGG and X-Planets, and I can take some joking. In fact, I’m as often as not one of the guilty parties. ;’) At least no one has made a Uranus joke yet, such as, “this explains the dark rings around Uranus”. Oh, sorry.
I’m no “stick in the mud” either, I can take some of the joke comments but “Bush’s fault”, “Palin’s fault” really gets old, time after time, thread after thread.
I love a good joke but these aren't jokes. They are so overdone that it is ridiculous.
Sunkenciv has the GGG PING LIST and Kevin Davis, IIRC, has the Space Ping list.........
Good points. Some of the data may be correct but they are so quick to decide what causes something unusual. They then talk about their conclusion as though it is fact and the only possible reason for the anomaly. We really know so little about the operations of universe that we do not have a right to draw quick conclusions and pronounce them as near facts/facts.
#OccupyMilkyWay!
Or maybe two categories within a science thread. One choice to post or click onto the serious category and a second choice to post or click unto the fun category. I often get a little frustrated trying to search for the serious stuff but must admit end up chuckling at some of the fun stuff.
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