Universe is odd, findings say
WASHINGTON (AP) - January 11, 2008 The research findings from this week's annual meeting of U.S.
astronomers range from blue orphaned baby stars to menacing
"rogue" black holes that roam our galaxy.
"It's an odd universe we live in," said Vanderbilt University
astronomer Kelly Holley-Bockelmann. She presented her theory on
rogue black holes at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in
Austin, Texas, earlier this week.
It should be noted that she's not worried and you shouldn't be
either. The odds of one of these black holes swallowing up Earth or
the sun or wreaking other havoc is somewhere around 1 in 10
quadrillion in any given year.
"This is the glory of the universe," added J. Craig Wheeler,
president of the astronomy association. "What is odd and what is
normal is changing."
Just five years ago, astronomers were gazing at a few thousand
galaxies where stars formed in a bizarre and violent manner. Now
the number is in the millions, thanks to more powerful telescopes
and supercomputers to crunch the crucial numbers streaming in from
space, said Wheeler, a University of Texas astronomer.
Scientists are finding that not only are they improving their
understanding of the basic questions of the universe - such as how
did it all start and where is it all going - they also keep
stumbling upon unexpected, hard-to-explain cosmic quirks and the
potential, but comfortably distant, dangers.
Much of what they keep finding plays out like a stellar version
of a violent Quentin Tarantino movie. The violence surrounds and
approaches Earth, even though our planet is safe and "in a pretty
quiet neighborhood," said Wheeler, author of the book "Cosmic
Catastrophes."
One example is an approaching gas cloud discussed at the meeting
Friday. The cloud has a mass 1 million times that of the sun. It is
47 quadrillion miles away. But it's heading toward our Milky Way
galaxy at 150 miles per second. And when it hits, there will be
fireworks that form new stars and "really light up the
neighborhood," said astronomer Jay Lockman at the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia.
But don't worry. It will hit a part of the Milky Way far from
Earth and the biggest collision will be 40 million years in the
future.
The giant cloud has been known for more than 40 years, but only
now have scientists realized how fast it's moving. So fast, Lockman
said, that "we can see it sort of plowing up a wave of galactic
material in front of it."
When astronomers this week unveiled a giant map of mysterious
dark matter in a supercluster of galaxies, they explained that the
violence of the cramped-together galaxies is so great that there is
now an accepted vocabulary for various types of cosmic brutal
behavior.
The gravitational force between the clashing galaxies can cause
"slow strangulation," in which crucial gas is gradually removed
from the victim galaxy. "Stripping" is a more violent process in
which the larger galaxy rips gas from the smaller one. And then
there's "harassment," which is a quick fly-by encounter, said
astronomer Meghan Gray of the University of Nottingham in the
United Kingdom.
Gray's presentation essentially showed the victims of
galaxy-on-galaxy violence. She and her colleagues are trying to
figure out the how the dirty deeds were done.
In the past few days, scientists have unveiled plenty to ooh and
aah over:
- Photos of "blue blobs" that astronomers figure are orphaned
baby stars. They're called orphans because they were "born in the
middle of nowhere" instead of within gas clouds, said Catholic
University of America astronomer Duilia F. de Mello.
- A strange quadruplet of four hugging stars, which may
eventually help astronomers understand better how stars form.
- A young star surrounded by dust, that may eventually become a
planet. It's nicknamed "the moth," because the interaction of
star and dust are shaped like one.
- A spiral galaxy with two pairs of arms spinning in opposite
directions, like a double pinwheel. It defies what astronomers
believe should happen. It is akin to one of those spinning-armed
flamingo lawn ornaments, said astronomer Gene Byrd of the
University of Alabama.
- The equivalent of post-menopausal stars giving unlikely birth
to new planets. Most planets form soon after a sun, but astronomers
found two older stars, one at least 400 million years old, with new
planets.
"Intellectually and spiritually, if I can use that word with a
lower case 's,' it's awe-inspiring," Wheeler said. "It's a great
universe."
---
On the Net:
American Astronomical Society: http://www.aas.org/
Hubble Space Telescope: http://hubblesite.org/