Alien stars pass close to home.Stars from an alien galaxy are raining down on our own Milky Way Milky Way, the galaxy of which the sun and solar system are a part, seen as a broad band of light arching across the night sky from horizon to horizon; if not blocked by the horizon, it would be seen as a circle around the entire sky. and passing just a few hundred light-years from Earth. That's the conclusion of astronomers Famous astronomers and astrophysicists include: Directory: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A
A small, dim galaxy, intermediate in size between a regular galaxy and a globular cluster. Like larger galaxies, dwarf galaxies are classified as elliptical, spiral, or irregular based on their shape. , one of two dwarf galaxies that the Milky Way's gravity is ripping apart (SN: 11/15/03, p. 307). When a dwarf galaxy passes close to the Milky Way, its leading edge gets pulled more strongly by our galaxy's gravity than its trailing edge does. The unequal tugs stretch the dwarf, pulling stars out in spaghetti-like streams. A veil of dust in the Milky Way blocks visible light emanating from these streams, but infrared light Noun 1. infrared light - electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than radio waves infrared emission, infrared radiation, infrared punches through. Steven R. Majewski of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and his colleagues mapped Sagittarius by selecting a group of infrared-bright stars. These M stars are rare in the outskirts of our galaxy but plentiful in the dwarf. The new map reveals that thousands of stars from Sagittarius are now passing through the region of the Milky Way in which the sun resides, the team reports in the Dec. 20 Astrophysical Journal The Astrophysical Journal, often abbreviated to ApJ, is a scientific journal covering astronomy and astrophysics. It was founded in 1895 by George Ellery Hale and James E. Keeler. It currently (October 2006) publishes three issues per month, with 500 pages per issue. . That's something of a cosmic coincidence because the sun and its environs take 240 million years to orbit the center of the Milky Way and intersect the Sagittarius stream for only a small fraction of that time. |
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