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The Atoms-for-Peace Galaxy looks as if it's spinning violently out of control in a stunning new image captured by a telescope in Chile. Actually, this is a slow-motion smashup -- the kind of smashup that can show astronomers how galaxies interact and evolve. The wild galactic merger shown here, for example, is thought to play out over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
The galaxy, 220 million light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, is actually made up of two galaxies that are plowing into each other so forcefully that they create long, intertwined tidal tails. The pressures of that gravitational interaction is squeezing new star clusters into existence. Today's image advisory from the European Southern Observatory explains that these star clusters are seen today as they were 50 million to 100 million years after their creation.
Such galactic mergers serve as coming attractions for what might happen in our own galaxy 3 billion years or more from now. The Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, and as the galaxies merge, some stars (such as our own sun, if it's still around at that time) will likely be thrown onto new trajectories. Fresh generations of stars will come to life as well, sparking up the Andromilky Way.
The ESO explains that the Atoms-for-Peace Galaxy was given its unusual name after President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a 1953 speech on his "Atoms for Peace" program, promoting the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It's a bonus that the galaxy looks like the classic representation of an atom, with electrons -- in this case, countless star systems -- looping fuzzily around the dense nucleus.
More galactic crash scenes:
- Galaxies go into shock
- Hubble's 'fountain of youth'
- Galaxies in gridlock
- Season's greeting from space
- Close encounter with a galaxy cluster
- ESO shows you the Cosmic Bird
- X-rated galaxies
- Stars gone wild
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I guess we could spare a "Spin Doctor," Rush, Bill, Glenn, might be available.
Andromilky Way??? I think Milkandroid Galaxy is better! We can all milk androids for all their worth!
I like Mildromiday Galaxy myself.
Course the one thing they omit is that none of us here right now will experience it...but hey..that's science!
Do they really need to specify that we won't be here 3 billion years or more from now?
LMAO. it would be funny if every article ended with "and by the way in 3 billion years you will be dead".
Where humanity on Earth is heading, We don't need any roads!
Eventually, we won't even need our bodies. :-)
Sheer profundity. Care to enlighten us master?
Very interesting image!
By my count I can see at least five concentric spheres with more intense light sources at the rims.
Shock waves?
If so, could the glow be the quark-gluon plasma we are so eagerly awaiting to see at LHC?
Are we observing a scaled down big bang event?
Could the rapid expansion of the very young universe have been accelerated by shock waves created behind the very hot and faster moving quark-gluon plasma?
Instead of a single event could the big bang comprised of multiple exothermic releases which could explain the uneven cooling of the plasma?
If they were exothermic reactions could this rule out gravity as the fundamental force and instead point to the strong interaction?
So, are the gluons the real path to solving the whole thing?
So, are "flex tubes" comprising solely of glueballs the fundamental force that keeps the quarks confined in the vacuum and gives mass and velocity to the quark-antiquark pair when releasing them from the vacuum to maintain conservation of energy and momentum.
Since the quarks mass varies from 2.5 MeV/c2 (up quark) to 172,000 MeV/c2 (top quark), does this indicate that the flex tube is oscillating?
Finally, does this mean that the gluon and photon are created from the same source of vibrating string, "flex tube" with the glueball as the mediator?
Would we be able to access this hypothetical at LHC?
Oaktree... I like your series of ?? operating from the clinical aspect. LHC is cooking up the answers.
I prefer the philosophical side of the ?? Interesting indeed, how some obscure graphic artist from the '50's could render a symbol for the atom that resembles a galaxy 220 million LY distant and invisible to us until today.
So interesting that 220 million year old photons can strike the retina of a human eye and generate impulses that travel along an optic nerve into a brain where an image made of nothing more than electrical energy is assembled into a coherent representation of an ancient artifact of reality that may no longer even exist.
What, you say the real thing was made of nothing more than electrical energy? Well then which is the real thing, the one in my head or the one at the other end of that 220 million LY journey? The one in the photo on our screens, or the one that might have winked out 50 million years ago?
Reminds me of the book, 'Proust Was A Neuroscientist,' by J. Lehrer. He presents a series of examples that demonstrate how artists, poets and daydreamer types can casually intuit the inner workings of reality...
Take for example, Walt Disney. In 1928 he created Mickey Mouse. 82 years later, Christine O'Donnell reveals the shocking reality of mice with fully functioning human brains... Sheer profundity.
Am I reading you right in saying you think I have gone over board with my detail questions from very limited data from a single image?
Are you saying my wiring is not elaborate enough to extrapolate abstract concepts?
Are you calling a "daydreamer", Sir?
I will have you know next to Bugs Bunny, Mickey was my childhood hero! lol
No, I don't think you're overboard at all! I wasn't saying you don't grasp the abstract either... if you can appreciate highly abstract String Theory, you're wiring is obviously highly elaborate!
I didn't mean to supplant your preference for mine, just to compare them. We're all day dreamers... well except maybe Christine... she's out to sea w/out a boat.
Th,th,th,th,th... that's all folks!
I think it`s incredible that we can see what`s going on so far away from us.
Agreed.. it is incredible.... But...
Being that this galaxy is 220 million light-years away...
We're not REALLY seeing what's GOING on...
But what WENT on...
220 Million years ago...
If you were right now where that galaxy is....
and were to look towards Earth...
You wouldn't see Earth of today...
But Earth 220 million years ago...
With a strong enough telescope,
maybe you could zoom in and see dinosaurs walking around...
since the time frame seems about right...
Wrap your head around that!
I'd rather wrap some dried kelp around it. Yum, Tyranasaurus Sushi.
"The pressures of that gravitational interaction is squeezing new star clusters into existence."
Pressures ARE squeezing. I don't mean to be hypercritical, but it's so jarring to read things like that. Alan Boyle's a great writer; I love his work; I'm grateful for his reporting. But "pressures is squeezing" hurts my ears.
I plan to be around to check it out, periodically.