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Space Science

Milky Way Gets Bigger 52

Posted by michael from the now-30%-more-free dept.
FU_Fish writes "Australian scientists have discovered a new arm reaching out from our beloved Milky Way. The arm is 60,000 light years away from the center of the galaxy and roughly 6,500 light years thick. I guess my dream of visiting every star in our galaxy just got a bit tougher."
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Milky Way Gets Bigger More

Milky Way Gets Bigger

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  • Don't tell Fatties! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @02:51PM (#7737230)
    Oh, so Al Roker hasn't actually lost weight - it's the space around him that's gotten bigger?
  • That and the 3 Musketeers. Are they bigger too? Will they charge the same?

  • That Ain't No Bird's-Eye View! (Score:4, Informative)

    by PateraSilk ( 668445 ) <tedol@isostandardst u d io.com> on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @03:00PM (#7737343) Homepage
    The picture they chose for the article looks more like a typical shot of the core in Sagittarius from Earth. "Bird's-eye view" in this context would probably mean "seen from galactic north".

  • Hubble (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 )

    So, I was just thinking. Brainstorming really. I had a thought about a real life use for moon colonization.

    Mount a telescope on the dark side of the moon.

    Shielded from the light of the sun, and mounted to a big solid object. The moon.

    Mapping the skies would be simple. Point the telescope straight out, take pictures every few minutes. Do that for a few months and you have detailed pictures of all the in a donut shaped space around you. Change angles and repeat. Although, the best you could ever do is a

    • Re:Hubble (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @03:16PM (#7737518)
      (pedantic...)
      Don't you mean the far side of the moon? All parts of the moon get sunlight.

      • I guess I wasn't ware that the far side of the moon got sunlight any time but a lunar eclipse. I'm no lunar expert, I'm just shooting from the hip here.

        • Re:Hubble (Score:4, Informative)

          by Russ Steffen ( 263 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @06:22PM (#7739763) Homepage

          It actually doesn't matter all that much. Since there's no atmosphere there, you can still do a lot of optical observations during the lunar day. Only objects that appear near the sun would be off limits. The real advantage to the moon, though, would be for radio astronomy - the far side is quite well shielded from earth's radio noise.

          • Dark spots on the moon (Score:3, Informative)

            by lommer ( 566164 )
            Actually, at the North and South poles of the moon there are craters that don't recieve any sunlight at the bottom, ever. Some people have advocated putting optical telescopes there. Others have discussed the proposition of building a circumlunar railway with the telescope mounted on it so that the telescope could always be on the dark side of the moon (the moon's rotation is a lot slower and it's a lot smaller, making the distance and speeds actually feasible.)

            Despite those, the benefits of a radio telesc
      • No. The bottoms of certain craters near the North and South Poles of the Moon do not ever get sunlight. Currently debates rage over whether said craters contain significant deposits of water ice, with radar saying nay and epi-thermal neutron detectors saying yeah.

    • Re:Hubble (Score:4, Informative)

      by shane_rimmer ( 622400 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @03:25PM (#7737613)

      The dark side of the moon gets plenty of sunlight when the moon is between Earth and Sol.

      Look here [badastronomy.com] for more information about why we always see the same part of the moon

      • Wow, that site is awesome. That's the best explanation I've ever seen of why one side of the moon is always facing us. I also like the explanation of why the moon's orbit is spiraling outward and (as a result) Earth's day is getting longer. Thanks for the link!
    • How would you get the data back to the earth, with the MOON in the way? We only face one side of the moon, and there would be no way without a network of satellites around the moon to receive the image data back on earth.

      • That is why i mentioned colonization. Just store it localy. Run a cable, or do a ground based wireless relay around the moon to our side.

        • Hey, say it with me... *re-lay*. A transceiver satellite orbiting above the moon will be more than capable of sending images back to Earth. (Obviously, cost is not a factor, since we're talking about putting a telescope on the moon...)

          Interestingly, we should also be able to make a much bigger mirror/lens if it is manufactured locally on the moon (imagine that - UAW local 4775, Mare Imbrium) since the gravity is so much lower. The distortions and cracking prolem here on Earth would be lessened considera

    • Re:Hubble (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Noren ( 605012 )
      Ignoring the "dark side"/ far side confusion others have pointed out:

      In addition to the general advantages of placing a telescope on the moon (no atmosphere), the far ('dark') side of the moon has a unique advantage: it's always shielded from Earth, which is a huge radio source. For this reason, the far side of the moon would be an ideal spot to build a radio telescope. [nasa.gov]

    • I think that one could land fully automated space telescopes (or "telescope kits" to be assembled by robots) anywhere in the Moon without having to use humans, so I am skeptic about such a project leading to the colonization of the Moon. In fact, it is very hard to think of anything that could lead to the colonization of the Moon (even a hypothetical mining of Helium-3 could be done in an automated way). Perhaps the only possible scenario for Moon colonization is related to Space Tourism: supposing that sp

  • Does this mean (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @03:16PM (#7737525) Homepage Journal
    that there's actually a part of the galaxy Star Trek hasn't explored yet? Good! Time for a new series instead of the prequel! ;)

    • This does exist in the Star Trek Universe! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's called "The delphic expanse." It's a strange, scary place where the laws of physics are turned upside down. Flesh is distorted, bodies are turned inside out, and Rick Bergman is considered creative and clever. You wouldn't want to go there.
  • A bit offtopic but, I don't think the ./ audience needs a title like "Milky Way gets bigger" instead of "New arm of Milky Way galaxy discovered" to be interested in the article.
  • C'mon people we need to start catching these at a minimum of 2,000 light year thickness so that we can better handle our space arms. Once you get into the 5-6,000 LYT's you're basically dealing with a crazy runaway moose.

  • Ha! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sandmann ( 182819 ) <sandmann@daimi.au.dk> on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @03:28PM (#7737633)
    In your face, Andromeda!
    • Don't be so sure. In 3 billion years, they are going to collide [utoronto.ca]! Forget Earth, out entire galaxy is going to be destroyed! Not really, but both galaxies will merely merge into a single elliptical galaxy.
      • Actually from what I remember reading, it'll collide with us, pass through us, then swing back around a few more times before finally just stays with us

  • Hmm... Let's see...

    That's about 100 billion stars (best estimate), so if you started today, and lived another 100 years (lucky you), you'd have to visit about 1 billion stars a year. That would mean about 3 million stars a day or about 100,000 stars every hour. So you'd only have to visit about 30 stars every second. How hard could that be?

  • Hitchhiker's Guide (Score:4, Funny)

    by hound3000 ( 238628 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @06:44PM (#7739965) Journal
    "I guess my dream of visiting every star in our galaxy just got a bit tougher."

    Yes, but are you going to insult everybody in it? Individually, personally, one by one, and by alphabetical order?

    I miss Douglas Adams [c2.com]

  • Headline (Score:3, Funny)

    by Man of E ( 531031 ) <i.have@no.email.com> on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @08:38PM (#7740920)
    Milky Way gets bigger? Reminds me of the newspaper headlines back in 1492 (the good old days):

    Path to India discovered! The Earth gets rounder!

  • California biologists have discovered a additional arm on Michael Jackson.

    -

  • Press always gets it wrong... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jump ( 135604 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @09:39AM (#7744259)
    This is not a birds-eye view. It's the view of the Milkyway from earth when you look towards the Center with Infrared Telescopes. If you want to see a real bird-eye view of the Milkyway spiral pattern you have to go here [unibas.ch].
  • Maybe it's time to take a look again at dark matter. This newly found ring has probably some good mass, however I don't know if it really goes for all the missing matter. I guess there is research on velocity inside our galazy, not only Doppler shift in other galaxies.
    • matter. This newly found ring has probably some good mass, however I don't know if it really goes for all the missing matter.

      It doesn't. Not even close. The matter we can account for only adds up to about one tenth of what we should have. So, even if this new arm of our galaxy somehow contained as much matter as the rest of the entire known universe, we would still be in the dark about 80% of our universe.

      Yeah, it's a real lot of matter that we can't find, which is why it's such a major problem in modern
  • Seems like most posters, the original article submitter FU_Fish, and /. editor michael did not actually RTFA, or at least not very well. This new arm is gas, not stars, and it may just be an extension of an arm we already know about.
  • Hmmm? Could it really be that the galaxy is bigger than we thought or our scientists are running out of new idea's so they go and make shit up to keep funding? The world will never know.

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