The Milky Way is Not a Spiral? 594
ETEQ writes "Space.com reports that new data from the Spitzer Space Telescope showing that the Milky Way is in fact a barred spiral! Looks like all our old astronomy textbooks will have to be thrown away..."
Throw 'em Away (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Throw 'em Away (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides you don't want to set a precedent for your cowboy president to throw away all books on evolution because some small flaw is found in one part of the theory.
Re:Throw 'em Away (Score:3, Interesting)
"What's this?" I asked.
"A revision, of course."
So simple, so effective, yet so few do it anymore.
One of the few places that I've seen still do it is a roleplaying company, of all things - Kenzer & Company [kenzerco.com], makers of Hackmaster. They published in their comics a series of errata, perfectly sized to cover the amended section, in the same font et al, so you could update your rulebooks witho
Chucking Books... (Score:5, Funny)
Just be careful of the words "throw away", "give away" and "books" in Henico County, VA
"Mine, mine! Geroff! Mine!"
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:4, Interesting)
* Hundreds of treatments involving mercury and various acids
* Discussion of the debate on whether what causes rabies is an organism or a toxin
* Amusing description of the disease "Hysteria", a catch-all disease for women.
* Recipes for feeding sick people - includes about a dozen types of gruel.
* Discussion of STDs couched in terms of Christian morality
* A detailed discussion of the Japanese medical system around the turn of the century.
* A plant identification guide, in the section for how to prepare your own medicines
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:4, Insightful)
Astronomy texts as recent as 40 years old still mention the Marias on the Moon to be ancient seas (though some scoff at the idea that they currently hold water, how preposterous); how the dark areas on Mars are the result of vegetation, and yet made humour about how people used to think there was intelligent life there; green stars, especially the green companion of Antares when there are no green stars; etc. Interestingly they DO mention planet X since they were still searching for it while most recent astronomy books had given up on the search for planet X. Now it seems we've found planet X after all, and even bigger than we thought after we discovered the IR telescope had the wrong target.
Going back further, astronomy books thought galaxies were nebulae, just puffs of gas and dust within our galaxy. Just like we originally thought that ours was the only solar system, it was not that long ago that we thought our galaxy was the only one. Soon perhaps the idea of just one universe will sound silly to us...
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Interesting)
40 years ago geologists were swearing up and down that continental drift was a crackpot theory. Today they atill claim that geologic hydrocarbons are all the result of fossil life, despite all the methane and other HCs in the gas giants and their moons and despite oil being
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Insightful)
That the different outcomes or causes all occur (depending on whether one looks at it from the mathematically equivalent many-futures or many-histories points of view) is only a single hypothesis, and at that, only one that suggests tha
Laugh if you will, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Laugh if you will, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Funny)
No, not the treatment for Hysteria you'd expect. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:5, Insightful)
We still are. 100 years from now, they will laugh at us for our crazy notions about strings, chaos, and the human genome.
Science is not, and never has been, about being right. It's about trying to find predictive models of the universe which you can rely on most of the time.
The most advanced concepts of science will most likely sound as silly as "turtles, all the way down" to people a couple generations in the future, but they are still incredibly valuable to us today.
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pardon me, but the word "hallucination" seems very misleading. More preferable is the word "choice". We choose simplifying assumptions so that we can reason without getting bogged down with details that in the end tend to yield minimal effects.
Take toilet paper as an example. If you choose to work out the exact mathematical and physics model of toilet paper, you will still come to the same conclusions about effective procedures in cleaning. These sim
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't agree. Science isn't just about making predictions, it's also about providing explanations. But putting that aside, one of the reasons why some theories can provide accurate predictions is that they actually are correct - ie, the world really is the way they say it is.
I mean, there really are things like electrons, bacteria, anti-matter, and so
Predictions for the world of 2105 (Score:5, Interesting)
Psychiatric drug therapy of today will be seen in the same light as trying to fix jet engines using nothing but fuel additives. Most current forms of morality and immorality will be demonstrated to be correctable mental defects.
All sex laws and taboos will be seen as medieval.
More than 99.9% of people in the solar system will be able to outscore 99.9% of today's people on today's mental tests, but we would regard most of them as cheating. They will regard their enhancements as part of themselves or as corrective devices, like eyeglasses are today.
The concept of privacy, even for thoughts, will be as antique and nominal as the divine right of kings is today; nevertheless, people will be more free in the sense of usable personal power than they ever were in the past.
Global cooling will be a concern, but manageable.
Only a few fundamentalists will keep traditional 100% human bodies, or for that matter just one body. Some will have as many bodies as todays people have shirts.
Most "persons" in existence will not have been born at all. Greater than 90% of the population will have predominantly non-biological substrates, but some of these will have been born, while many of the mostly bio-based people will not have been. The sentient population will exceed 1 trillion by most measures, but will be difficult to decide how to count the self-aware corporations, partials and copies, distributed intellects, acorporeal persons and so forth. Most people will be very young by today's standards, but this will have little correlation with experience and knowledge, which will not necessarily be linked with personal histories.
Lamarck will be seen as not all that far off the mark. Epigenetic and protein-reaction-web engineering will be a basic ability like computer programming is today. The supposed decoding of the human genome at the end of the 20th century will be regarded as about as complete as Columbus' understanding of world geography. Virtually everything important will be in the introns, methylation etc. and in protein regulation of the genetic molecules.
Genetics (and other substrate codes) will be seen as easier to correct than personal environmental history , but not by much.
The expression "willful ignorance" will be seen as self-evidently redundant.
The theory of relativity will have undergone significant modifications.
Archaelology and paleontology will be essentially competed sciences, and today's theories will be seen as wrong in virtually every respect.
Teleportation will be commonplace, but will be based on information rather than matter per se traversing distances.
Eric Drexler's predictions in Engines of Creation and Nanosystems will be seen as being as over-conservative as Ben Franklin's speculations about the use of electricity.
Consciousness will be more fully understood than quantum mechanics is today. Indeed, they will turn out to be related, but only in a very vaguely similar manner to most of the 20th century speculations in that vein.
There will have been at least one more war which killed over 1,000,000 people, but none in at least 30 years.
Strong AI will show up late in the game, and won't take off instantly, but will have far surpassed human levels in every way in the late decades of the 21st century.
Re:Chucking Books... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I suspect that one day we will realize that those tiny bits are not there, either. Solid matter is merely a type of energy, and energy is merely the will of the Cosmos. C.S. Lewis had no idea how right he was when he said that the world around us was nothing but mere "shadowlands," and that reality, if it exists, is something
I always thought it was... (Score:4, Funny)
Not Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not Exactly (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
If the submitter had actually read the article....no, I guess that's too much to ask.
Quote FTA "The bar is made of relatively old and red stars, the survey shows. It is about 27,000 light-years long, or roughly 7,000 light-years longer than previously thought." (emphasis mine)
In other words, the news isn't that they just discovered the Milky War is a bared spiral galaxy, the news is that the Milky Way's bar is 7,000 light-years longer than scientists thought.
Re:Not Exactly (Score:5, Funny)
No, if I'm not mistaken, it would be "I think I am a waffle." "Ergo", the word you replaced, is what means "therefore".
Of course, "Eggo" doesn't sound like a nominative noun to a Latin speaker - it could be something like "Eggus" or whatnot, for which "Eggo" would be the ablative and dative singular. If that were the case, and "Eggus" meant "waffle", I believe it could be translated as "I think I am for the waffle", "I think I am to the waffle", "I think I am by means of the waffle", or several other things (I never really fully got the ablative).
Re:Not Exactly (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot "sum". "I think waffles exist"?
Re:Not Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
Sum = I am
Es = You (singular) are
Est = He/she/it is
Sumus = We are
Estis = You (plural) are
Sunt = They are.
So you have:
(I think) Eggo (I am)
One person suggested that we could make up for the lack of prepositions by treating Eggo as a first conjugation verb for "to waffle" - then it would be "I think. I waffle. I am." Deep...
Also a couple people caught my incorrect notion that there are no o-ending nominative forms. I forgot that there are several in third declens
Re:Not Exactly (Score:4, Funny)
Stuart
45 Degree line? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure that this means "Do not enter" according to international standards.
Re:45 Degree line? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:45 Degree line? (Score:2, Funny)
Kierthos
Re:45 Degree line? (Score:5, Informative)
typical science reporting. totally wrong. if that
chap had bothered to READ and understand the original article or web site, he would have
read
"It also shows that the bar is oriented at about a 45-degree angle relative to a line joining the sun and the center of the galaxy."
meaning the bar is in the galactic plane, not sticking out as the space.com article suggests
http://www.news.wisc.edu/11405.html [wisc.edu] seems a far better reference.
Just for the record, I still find it amusing that
astronomers always seem to need to report
in numbers astronomers don't even use. I know
of no single person that uses the lightyear, in
galactic astronomy we use the kilo-parsec (kpc).
The pc and lj are pretty close to each other,
3.26 between the two. So that 27,000 lightyear bar
would be 8.2 kpc. It must be the total length, since the sun is about 8 kpc from the center of
the milky way.
Re:45 Degree line? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:45 Degree line? (Score:3, Funny)
That'd be intergalactic standards, sir.
Old Textbooks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which happens every year at the university level anyway, where a new 'edition' comes out every year with one or two pages slightly modified, but you have to buy the new one for $150 since the questions and homework study in the appendix are completely different. No, I'm not bitter that the fall semester is coming or anything.
Re:Old Textbooks? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the event they are giving away old text books, please let me know. I'll happily stand in line, with my folding chair.
I've shelled some really big zorkmids for astronomy books and
Flat Earth. (Score:5, Funny)
The Milky Way (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The Milky Way (Score:2)
It looks that way for now. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It looks that way for now. (Score:5, Interesting)
Other interesting aspects of the spirals is that they do not actually contain much more mass, 5% more iirc, than the space between the spirals. There is a larger number of new stars being formed in the spirals, thus the bright but shortlived stars make them visible.
These star births are caused by the compression of cold molecular clouds. Thus when another smaller galaxy collides it may cause shockwaves to travel through the galaxy compressing the molecular clouds.
Re:It looks that way for now. (Score:3, Informative)
That's not my understanding. What I've read and seen, is that the larger Andromeda Galaxy will plow through the MilkyWay, tearing both apart, with some of the galactic arms being shorn off and dismemebered and tossed into intergalactic space, with the two larger destroyed galaxies colliding again and then collapsing into
So much for my RPG galaxy maps... (Score:3, Funny)
Yay for more evidence! (Score:2, Interesting)
Nah, keep 'em (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nah, keep 'em (Score:2)
Isn't it obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:3, Funny)
Brown matter?
Re:Isn't it obvious? (Score:2)
(with apologies to Mr. Costanza)
Aaaw crap... (Score:5, Funny)
No way (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Homer Quote (Score:3, Funny)
Mmmmmm... Milky Way Bar...
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
Title: The Galactic Bar
Authors: Merrifield, M. R.
Journal: Milky Way Surveys: The Structure and Evolution of our Galaxy, Proceedings of ASP Conference #317. The 5th Boston University Astrophysics Conference held 15-17 June, 2003 at Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. Edited by Dan Clemens, Ronak Shah, and Teresa Brainerd. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2004., p.289
Abstract:
Like the majority of spiral galaxies, the Milky Way contains a central non-axisymmetric bar component. Our position in the Galactic plane renders it rather hard to see, but also allows us to make measurements of the bar that are completely unobtainable for any other system. This paper reviews the evidence for a bar that can be gleaned from the many extensive surveys of both gas and stars in the Milky Way. We introduce some simplified models to show how the basic properties of the bar can be inferred in a reasonably robust manner despite our unfavorable location, and how the complex geometry can be used to our advantage to obtain a unique three-dimensional view of the bar. The emerging picture of the Galactic bar is also placed in the broader context of current attempts to understand how such structures form and evolve in spiral galaxies.
Known for decades (Score:5, Informative)
Next week, I'm sure we'll all be thrilled to learn that the sky is blue. Rewrite the textbooks!
Maybe the sky isn't blue, either (Score:2)
Re:Maybe the sky isn't blue, either (Score:2)
Re:Maybe the sky isn't blue, either (Score:3, Interesting)
We might point out that there's a critical difference between "The sky is blue" and "The sky appears blue". The first isn't quite correct, because "blue" isn't actually an accurate description of the sky's spectrum. The second is correct, because it acknowledges that the color depends on the observer's optical equipment.
It would be even better to say "The sky appears blue to the human eye". It has different colors to other animals. Thus, bir
Re:Known for decades (Score:3, Interesting)
Saw it on the tribune earlier:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1556/5564676.h
Re:Known for decades (Score:2)
Re:Known for decades (Score:3, Informative)
You can't confirm somehing if you didn't already suspect it, right? It is just a small issue though. What actually is a new discovery (I think. IANAA) is this
Still a spirl... (Score:5, Funny)
e.g.
public class CBarredSpiral : CSpiral
Re:Still a spirl... (Score:2)
Non-bar spiral galaxies are just a special case of the barred spiral with a bar length of less than epsilon.
It is not proof. (Score:2, Funny)
rest (Score:2, Funny)
Hold on... (Score:3, Insightful)
That explains a lot! (Score:5, Funny)
How Come... (Score:4, Funny)
Old textbooks? (Score:2)
Along with the old physics, paleonthology, biology, etc. are thrown away everytime a theory's proven wrong.
Anyway, astronomy textbooks should be dumped regularly. Just look at the most recent findings in astronomy: Supermassive black holes, Planet X, black holes hidden behind clouds of dust... I wonder what new astronomical discovery appears next month.
Well, that will make things easier... (Score:2)
Old news if you follow space stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
[supermassive] black holes? (Score:2)
I've known this for years (Score:3, Funny)
Um...a little silly, but interesting take. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a bar in our galaxy? (Score:3, Funny)
--ken
Patch for the books (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Patch for the books (Score:2)
we already do (Score:2)
Dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dupe (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dupe (Score:3, Insightful)
At least we know that it's still business as usual
Re:Whoa! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:5, Insightful)
> Well the actual problem is people on both sides. First you have one group who believes that science is actual truth, and that all the problems in the world can be fixed with science.
I suspect that most scientists actually believe that science is an attempt to get at the truth, and will likely never be complete. And that only some problems can be fixed with science.
> Religion on the other hand is more of a combined study where you put together many different studies and look at the truth as a whole
Actually, religion looks at mythology and people's opinions about theology, morals, the proper social order, and the existence of a lot of unevidenced supernatural stuff.
> The main difference is science is trying to constantly disprove itself while religion is trying to prove itself. They are not opposing forces just different methods of trying to find truth.
Religion, most often, merely attempts to maintain traditional beliefs and values. Those who are "trying to find truth" usually get kicked out of the club, because truth is rarely deferential to traditional beliefs.
Re:Science is not right all the time. Blasphemy!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Strawman to the nth degree.
Your comment reveals a profound ignorance of what science is about. Anyone who believes science reveals truth doesn't understand science. Science is the search for fact. not truth. As Indiana Jones memorably said,
Furthermore, the purpose of science isn't to "solve problems"; it is the search for fact.
And ever since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment displacing Rationalism in the 18th century, science never seeks to prove anything. In science you can disprove, but you cannot prove because of the principle of skepticism. So the statement "if science can't 100% prove it, other theories are fair game" makes no sense at all.
The purpose of science is the search for fact. Science is the study of the natural world. Religion and philosophy are there to provide commentary on and understanding of the human condition. From that perspective, they have nothing to do with each other and should not be mixed.
Re:Science is not right all the time. Blasphemy!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, yes. But an important side effect is generating and testing explanations of those facts. With an emphasis on testing, which usually means you have to go out and collect more facts (usually called observations, or just data). So as a scientist, most of your life will always be collecting the facts that you need.
One of the more pointed explanations that Stephen Jay Gould made about evolution was to point out that Darwin didn't show that evolution had happe
Re:Science is not right all the time. Blasphemy!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue of truth is not so crucial. There is nothing wrong with looking for truth. There is only something wrong with the arrogance involved in think
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:2, Redundant)
Oh, I don't necessarily think you are a moron or a fool. You may just be ignorant [tnr.com]. Fortunately, the latter condition is treatable [talkorigins.org].
Okay, karma don't fail me now (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, there's a difference between being open-minded and just plain trying to justify remaining religious while supporting popular scientific theories. Personally, as a believer in what I guess is called the postmodern philosophy, I'm extremely skeptical about most things, especially things of universal magnitude. I just don't think there's any evidence whatsoever to suggest intelligent design is possible, and there's plenty of evidence to the contrary t
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:2)
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:2)
The processes that form the universe, and in turn create life and allow it to evolve, appear to run on their own, following automatically from a number of fundamental constants. The only possible place for God, then, is as the definer of those original constants. An all-powerful Creator would certainly be able to see the processes that would flow from his original definitions, but it's hard for me to agree that God "used" evolution t
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:2)
Yep, and there's also a right to be an inconsiderate idiot about people's religious beliefs and berate them, despite having no positive way to know the origin of life, the Earth, or energy and matter. Forgive the worn-out cliche, but "Welcome to Slashdot."
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Arguments from incredulity may satisfy your faith, but in the pursuit of knowledge, they're in fact worse than useless.
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:3, Interesting)
If, on the other hand, you mean a more nebulous intelligent designer that leant a helping hand, then while I disagree with
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I subscribe to ID Version 5.3.Goody-pre-1
I don't abhor the teaching of Evolution or other scientific theories,
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:5, Insightful)
> This has been precisely my argument in favor of Intelligent Design. Evolution could have been the product of the creator stacking the dominoes so the right tap made it all happen. Evolution and the Big Bang may have been the implementation of "the Design."
FYI, that's not an argument in favor of ID. It's merely an argument that ID could be framed in such a way that it would not be in conflict with the known facts.
Unicorn Theory can also be framed in such a way that it is not in conflict with the known facts, but an argument in favor of UT is another matter altogether.
And that's precisely the problem with ID. When you analyze their arguments and spot them for the bunkum that they are, you're left without any reason to believe in ID. That's not a proof that no IDer exists, but it leaves ID in the same category as UT, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, PSI power, and other stuff that some people believe in without any evidence.
Re:Science is not wright all the time. Blasaphmy!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I should have seen that predictable response coming
At the end of your life of Earth, evolution, the Big Bang and other theories are interesting academic exercises but they don't do anything if you are more than worm food and there is a Creator. Not believing may or may not get you "in". Being a jerk about it and those who believe probably wo
Re:Humble Pie (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Department of Redundancy Department (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not sure how... (Score:2)
It appears the article may be mistaken about that. Another article [wisc.edu] states that the bar is simply at a 45 degree angle relative to our position from the core. In other words, where we are in relation to the bar.