Astronomers Witness Whopper Galaxy Collision 227
Raver32 writes "A major cosmic pileup involving four large galaxies could give rise to one of the largest galaxies the universe has ever known, scientists say.
Each of the four galaxies is at least the size of the Milky Way, and each is home to billions of stars.
The galaxies will eventually merge into a single, colossal galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way.
"When this merger is complete, this will be one of the biggest galaxies in the universe," said study team member Kenneth Rines of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, gives scientists their first real glimpse into a galaxy merger involving multiple big galaxies.
"Most of the galaxy mergers we already knew about are like compact cars crashing together," Rines said. "What we have here is like four sand trucks smashing together, flinging sand everywhere.""
Merger? (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of like if Walmart, Target, Sears, and the DoD merged?
One wonders what the galactic lawyers will get out of this.
No, you're all wrong!! (Score:2, Funny)
Nope. Read again, more closely.
Astronomers Witness Whopper Galaxy Collision
The implication is that Burger King intends to merge with Dairy Queen and will be introducing its line of BK burgers at DQ. Honestly.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No, no. It's a merger of four giants! The implication is that Burger King, Subway, McDonald's and Taco Bell are all merging, and soon you'll be able to get McBurritos and Whopper subs on whole wheat.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Its really weird to be able to order pizza, tacos, and friend fish at the same counter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
-l
Re: (Score:2)
Or one of the nastier black holes, sort of like what happens with corporate mergers gone wrong, or the federal deficit, for that matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
During the collision of the galaxies, it's unlikely that any of the suns will even hit each other. That's how freaking big space is.
Consider that we are in a galaxy. Now consider our nearest star (other than the Sun) is so far away that it takes _years_ for light to reach us.
If our galaxy collided with another galaxy (as it will - we are set to collide with the Andromeda galaxy), we probably wouldn't see much.
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
We need goverment intervention! (Score:2)
4 way stop? (Score:3, Interesting)
Layne
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can singularities actually collide? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:4 way stop? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 10? Huh? (Score:2)
4 galaxies the size of the Milky way create something 10 times bigger? Either the galaxies are much larger than the Milky Way or the result is not 10 times bigger...maybe only 4 times bigger?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It says at least.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 10? Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Meaning, none smaller. Doesn't mean they cant be bigger.
Order of Magnitude (Score:2)
Well, in some cases, astronomy is an order of magnitude science. As this collections of objects doesn't seem to have any gravitational lensing associated with it, there is no way to independently determine the mass of the system. A rough guess at the mass can be determined by assuming a mass to light radio since we know how bright it is (and presumably how far). That would lead to the mass estimates.
Its Galacta-mania IV! (Score:5, Funny)
Four galaxies enter. One galaxy leaves.
Let me guess... (Score:4, Funny)
BEOWULF!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't laughed out loud at something on
Re: (Score:2)
Mod that man up Funny with a hint of Insightful.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the biggest in the Universe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Expanding Universe? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Expanding Universe? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Expanding Universe? (Score:5, Informative)
*Well, this may or may not be the case, depending on how well I understand the expansion of space. If the apparently-faster-than-light expansion of the early universe is, in fact, due to a combination of things flying apart and the space between them expanding, it's reasonable to think that space is still expanding. In which case, literally everything is moving apart from everything else, from the neutrons and protons in your average nucleus to galactic clusters. But I may be misunderstanding the expansion of space.
Analogy breaking down (Score:2)
Now is that how they make those monster trucks?
But... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.
I doubt a "star crash" will happen (Score:2)
Insurance (Score:2)
This type story doesn't do much for me (Score:5, Funny)
The other thing that keeps me getting excited about this stuff is when something REALLY COOL is going to happen, and then they say. "It will be in the very near future, realativly, in the next 5 million years."
I got more out of the banner ads for self aiming telescopes in the $400-$500 range. I never was good at aiming my old telescope. I could find the moon, but not anything smaller.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, when someone can show me some live footage of two stars crashing into each other and a really big explosion, then I'll be impressed.
That's exactly what some gamma ray bursts [wikipedia.org] are thought to be: colliding stars. However, since they're colliding neutron stars, we can't really see them before the explosion, so all you see is a great big flash at the end. You don't see two stars zooming toward each other before they collide.
So typically human... (Score:2)
Move along, people - nothing to see here...
RS
Wild eyed exaggeration (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, because obviously when a couple of small cars collide it takes place over a few hundred thousand light years and lasts for a million years or so (the warranty on the airbag may be voided).
And this one is like trucks smashing together?
I am now firmly of the view that astronomers:
How about "This in no way whatsoever resembles any kind of collision you have ever witnessed on Earth, it dwarfs your imagination, and by the way any kind of anthropocentric comparison should have been buried with Galileo?"
Biggest ? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Galaxies - God - Cosmology (Score:2)
Most massive extinction event yet (Score:2)
On the other hand ... (Score:2)
NASA Link (Score:3, Informative)
Astrophysical Journal LETTERS?! (Score:3, Funny)
Late one night while I was working on my dissertation on polarimetry of active galactic nuclei, I was surprised by Maria, the physics department's delicious young cleaning lady. Her janitorial uniform did little to conceal her large, perky breasts, which were spherical and of uniform density...
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which always brings up my question: if the universe is not infinite in size, what is it expanding into or sitting in? I.e. if you place a drop of ink into a glass container full of water, the drop will expand (eventually) until it meets the glass.
That is not what is happening according to current theories of the universe. The most common answer I get is that is loops back upon itself. Fine. That still doesn't explain what the universe sits
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not a physicist, but I'll take a stab at this anyway. Basically, the universe isn't expanding into anything. There isn't empty space beyond the universe's boundaries; there isn't anything beyond those boundaries. It doesn't even make sense to say "beyond the boundaries of the universe". There is no frame of reference anywhere in the universe than could possibly observe or interact wit
Re:One of the biggest in the universe? (Score:5, Informative)
There are an infinite real numbers between 0 and 1 inclusive, but there is a largest element in the set (specifically, 1.0).
Likewise, even given an infinite set of galaxies, there can be a largest galaxy.
Re: (Score:2)
As he says, this is a fallacy. Even if there were an infinite number of galaxies, that does not mean that each galaxy is necessarily larger than any other. You could, in fact, have an infinite number of galaxies that are all the exact same size.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are assuming certain things to come up with that probability.
Yes, but it's pretty ridiculous to assume otherwise: that "the largest galaxy" is going to get finite probability mass out of an infinite collection of galaxies.
Unlikely? sure, but that's not the point.
Yeah, it kind of is the point: it is not mathematically impossible, but still absurd, to believe that we have actually run across the largest galaxy out of an infinitude of galaxies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Give you a simple example: between 0 and 100ML of water, there are only a finite number of volumes that can exist, since the minimum size for anything is the water molecule.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And while there may in reality be a finite number of possible sizes, the argument the OP made and the GP rebutted was about an infinite universe with an infinite number of galaxies, which are not necessarily each a different size than every other galaxy. The argument still works exactly a
Re: (Score:2)
If the universie in infinite, then there are an infinite number of galaxies that are even bigger.
Well the universe is not believed to be infinite but more like 150 Gly in diameter. And even then, there may be a limit to how big a galaxy can possibly be.
Re: (Score:2)
Completely off topic. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So this leads me to wonder, will a merger of this size cause a larger gravitational force as 4 swirling masses converge.
Not really. There will be more mass concentrated in the center of wherever the final galaxy ends up, but the gravitational field outside the boundary of where the current galaxies are won't really change.
Would this draw other galaxies closer to the newly merged one, ever increasing the size of the merged one?
No more so than the current galaxies are doing now; the final galaxy will have more or less the same mass as the originals, after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Less. It will have less.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Colliding black holes can radiate a lot of their mass-energy as gravitational waves, though; something like 30-40% in the be
Not true (Score:2)
Re:We're in the middle of a galactic accident now (Score:5, Informative)
At any rate, take a look at the original press release that was misinterpreted to come up with this theory here: http://astsun.astro.virginia.edu/~mfs4n/sgr/ [virginia.edu]
And take a look at a debunking here: http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/27/is-
And the wonkiness about the angle we see the Milky Way at from Earth is just plain bad math.
That link is false (Score:4, Informative)
Arrghh mods, don't believe everything you read! (Score:2, Informative)
The fact that the Milky Way is seen in the sky at an angle has always puzzled astronomers. If we originated from the Milky Way, we ought to be oriented to the galaxy's ecliptic, with the planets aligned around our Sun in much the same angle as our Sun aligns with the Milky Way.
If our sun is from the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, which is merging almost vertically with the Milky Way, you'd kinda assume then, that our orbit would be more 'galactic up-down' than the actual full orbit it has in the galactic plane. But I couldn't possibly explain it better than this guy: http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/27/is-t he-sun-from-another-galaxy/ [badastronomy.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Old news (Score:2)
No. Galaxies are huge, and these are very far away, so even if they are moving really fast they won't appear to move on a human time scale.
But the cool thing IMHO is that we are literally looking 5 billion years back in time.
Earth hadn't even formed when this collision took place, but we're looking at it right now.
It's sorta like this (Score:5, Informative)
Some time ago, we figured out that:
1. All type 1a supernovae are exactly as bright when they blow up, because that's a star going a tiny bit over the Chandrasekhar limit. So basically they're all very nearly exactly the same weight stars, and blow up in the same way. So since seen brighness decays with the square of the distance, you can calculate how far it was when you see one.
2. (Based on 1 too.) The farther something is, the more re-shifted its spectrum will be. Basically the faster it moves. So you can know fairly accurately how far away these 4 are.
And it would have to be a freakin' big star to be _that_ bright at that distance. You're asking for a galaxy sized star.
3. We also know how big a main sequence star can possibly get, and that's only about 120 solar masses, but the closer you get to that limit, the faster it burns and the more unstable it is. The ones over 100 solar masses burn extremely fast and tend to regularly blow up huge chunks of their mass.
At any rate, we know that a star can't possibly be as big as those things at that distance. Even a star with 100 solar masses, won't have 100 times the Sun's volume. Gravity compresses them a bit more. And even 100 times the Sun's volume would be only a bit over 4.5 times the Sun's radius. It's just not even _near_ the size of a galaxy.
Also, in spite of their massive mass and fast burning rate, the hypergiant stars seem to be "capped" in brightness, so they won't get as bright as a whole galaxy anyway.
Also, remember when I said they burn very fast? A hypergiant burns and blows up in 1 to 3 million years, give or take a few. That's about 4 orders of magnitude shorter than our Sun. They just don't live long enough for 4 of them to come anywhere near each other.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
From this distance, one vantage point, how can they know for sure this convergence is actually going to "collide" as opposed to just skim past each other? You can't tell how far apart they are in all 3 axii, just 2.
You get the third axis by comparing the Doppler shift with the apparent lateral speed. It's basic trig.