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Scientists discover hidden galaxies behind the Milky Way (explanation for "The Great Attractor?")
UWA ^ | 2/10/16

Posted on 02/10/2016 10:28:26 AM PST by LibWhacker

Hundreds of hidden nearby galaxies have been studied for the first time, shedding light on a mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the Great Attractor.

Despite being just 250 million light years from Earth—very close in astronomical terms—the new galaxies had been hidden from view until now by our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope equipped with an innovative receiver, an international team of scientists were able to see through the stars and dust of the Milky Way, into a previously unexplored region of space.

The discovery may help to explain the Great Attractor region, which appears to be drawing the Milky Way and hundreds of thousands of other galaxies towards it with a gravitational force equivalent to a million billion Suns.

Lead author Professor Lister Staveley-Smith, from The University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), said the team found 883 galaxies, a third of which had never been seen before.

“The Milky Way is very beautiful of course and it’s very interesting to study our own galaxy but it completely blocks out the view of the more distant galaxies behind it,” he said.

Professor Staveley-Smith said scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious Great Attractor since major deviatiofrom universal expansion were first discovered in the 1970s and 1980s.

“We don’t actually understand what’s causing this gravitational acceleration on the Milky Way or where it’s coming from,” he said.

“We know that in this region there are a few very large collections of galaxies we call clusters or superclusters, and our whole Milky Way is moving towards them at more than two million kilometres per hour.”

The research identified several new structures that could help to explain the movement of the Milky Way, including three galaxy concentrations (named NW1, NW2 and NW3) and two new clusters (named CW1 and CW2).

University of Cape Town astronomer Professor Renée Kraan-Korteweg said astronomers have been trying to map the galaxy distribution hidden behind the Milky Way for decades.

“We’ve used a range of techniques but only radio observations have really succeeded in allowing us to see through the thickest foreground layer of dust and stars,” she said.

“An average galaxy contains 100 billion stars, so finding hundreds of new galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way points to a lot of mass we didn't know about until now.”

Dr. Bärbel Koribalski from CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science said innovative technologies on the Parkes Radio telescope had made it possible to survey large areas of the sky very quickly.

“With the 21-cm multibeam receiver on Parkes we’re able to map the sky 13 times faster than we could before and make new discoveries at a much greater rate,” she said.

The study involved researchers from Australia, South Africa, the US and the Netherlands, and was published today in the Astronomical Journal.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: attractor; csiro; great; milkyway

1 posted on 02/10/2016 10:28:26 AM PST by LibWhacker
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So, does this dispel the entire “Dark Matter” joke?


2 posted on 02/10/2016 10:39:49 AM PST by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: LibWhacker

Amazing discovery of something that has always been there.......


3 posted on 02/10/2016 10:42:23 AM PST by Delta 21 (Patiently waiting for the jack booted kick at my door.)
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To: LibWhacker

Liars all.


4 posted on 02/10/2016 10:45:12 AM PST by TruthInThoughtWordAndDeed (Yahuah Yahusha)
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To: LibWhacker

Sneaky bastards can’t hide anymore.


5 posted on 02/10/2016 10:47:47 AM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: LibWhacker

From the number of satellite galaxies around us (I think 30 in various forms of assimilation or just bound to us by gravity), finding yet another hidden on the other side is mind-blowing.


6 posted on 02/10/2016 10:47:53 AM PST by VanDeKoik
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To: LibWhacker


7 posted on 02/10/2016 10:48:14 AM PST by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING ’VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: LibWhacker

You can run but you can’t hide.


8 posted on 02/10/2016 10:48:31 AM PST by Raycpa
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To: dsrtsage

No, I don’t think so. Why should it?


9 posted on 02/10/2016 10:48:53 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: Delta 21

Thus it is with many discoveries. But this, I’d argue, if interpreted correctly, hasn’t always been there.


10 posted on 02/10/2016 10:51:00 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: TruthInThoughtWordAndDeed

Why in the world would you call a group of leading physicists and astronomers a bunch of liars???


11 posted on 02/10/2016 10:52:29 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: JoeProBono

390s I hope!


12 posted on 02/10/2016 10:54:41 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: Delta 21
Amazing discovery of something that has always been there......

Which is usually the case for any discovery :-)

13 posted on 02/10/2016 10:54:53 AM PST by plain talk
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To: SunkenCiv

*ping*


14 posted on 02/10/2016 11:35:15 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: LibWhacker

....may help to explain the Great Attractor region, which appears to be drawing the Milky Way and hundreds of thousands of other galaxies towards it with a gravitational force equivalent to a million billion Suns.


We are being flushed!


15 posted on 02/10/2016 11:46:10 AM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: LibWhacker

Now we’ve done it! They were hiding for a reason.


16 posted on 02/10/2016 12:06:02 PM PST by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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To: LibWhacker

How does this further science? The fact that they did it?

We and every other galaxy is heading someplace 200 million light years away so it’s billions of years in the future...who cares?

Guess I’m a Luddite after all.


17 posted on 02/10/2016 1:46:22 PM PST by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
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To: hattend
I would say it gives us a more comprehensive understanding of the world in which we live, which is a common goal of all scientific disciplines. We may not always know a priori what good some new discovery will do for us, if any, but in the aggregate, our advancing scientific knowledge has been a marvelous thing for humanity and few could seriously argue we should turn back. (Don't tell the Unabomber I said that!)
18 posted on 02/10/2016 2:38:11 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

The article is about the 889 new galaxies which were seen by radio astronomers using new techniques. There is absolutely no explanation - NO explanation - for what the Great Attractor is or even a hint of a theory. Astronomer click bait.


19 posted on 02/10/2016 3:26:02 PM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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