Dark galaxy may be crashing into Milky Way.Byline: ANI London, November 23 (ANI): New calculations by a team of astronomers have indicated that a dark galaxy may be crashing into our own Milky Way. In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now, according to a report in New Scientist, it appears that the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself. Called Smith's cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy. What's more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago. To have survived, it must contain much more matter than previously thought, in order to provide enough gravity to hold it together. Calculations by Matthew Nichols and Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney The University of Sydney, established in Sydney in 1850, is the oldest university in Australia. It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight" Australian universities that are highly ranked in terms of their research performance. , Australia, indicate that it has about 100 times the previously estimated mass. Many more such dark galaxies may be out there, according to Leo Leo, in astronomy Leo [Lat.,=the lion], northern constellation lying S of Ursa Major and on the ecliptic (apparent path of the sun through the heavens) between Cancer and Virgo; it is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal . Simulations of galaxy formation suggest a galaxy the size of the Milky Way should feature about 1000 dwarf galaxies, but only a few dozen have been found so far. "Some of the missing dwarfs may be dark galaxies that are all but invisible," said Blitz. (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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