This is insane!
Stuff like this is the reason I love astrophysics and astronomy so much. Totally mindblowing!
Have you ever looked at the sky at night and found the famous band of stars called the Milky Way? Probably, but did you notice it's tilted at an angle? Well, this thing really puzzled astronomers for quite some time.
That's because what you saw is actually our galaxy itself, seen from the side. The classical maps of the galaxy place our solar system in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. However, 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.
Now, a team of astronomers at universities of Virginia and
Massachusetts used a supercomputer to come up with a strange answer to the question: why are we tilted in the galaxy?
Our solar system comes from another galaxy!
They used volumes of data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), a major project to survey the sky in infrared light led by the University of Massachusetts and discovered that our galaxy is in fact cannibalizing a smaller neighbor, the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.
Although it is one of the closest companion galaxies to the Milky Way, the main parent cluster is on the opposite side of the galactic core from Earth and consequently is very faint, although it covers a large area of the sky.
Milky Way is currently absorbing the dwarf galaxy, 10,000 times smaller in mass, which is getting stretched out, torn apart and gobbled up by our bigger galaxy. The stars in the Sagittarius form a cosmic spaghetti noodle wrapping itself around the Milky Way.
The really big news is the fact that our solar system is located at the exact nexus crossroads where two galaxies are actually joining. This would explain the odd angle at which we see the Milky Way in the sky, at night, meaning that our Sun is influenced by some other system.
This could mean that our solar system could in fact have come from the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.
"This first full-sky map of Sagittarius shows its extensive interaction with the Milky Way," said Steven Majewski, University of Virginia professor of astronomy and lead author on the paper describing the results. "Both stars and star clusters now in the outer parts of the Milky Way have been 'stolen' from Sagittarius as the gravitational forces of the Milky Way nibbled away at its dwarf companion. This one vivid example shows that the Milky Way grows by eating its smaller neighbors."
So it seems we don't have to look for aliens anymore, since we are aliens to this galaxy ourselves.
Doesn't it suck that cool things like this will never be in the news? Call me crazy but I think where we come from is a lot more interesting and profound than where Britney Spears went clubbing last night, and did she remember to wear underwear.
Have you ever looked at the sky at night and found the famous band of stars called the Milky Way? Probably, but did you notice it's tilted at an angle? Well, this thing really puzzled astronomers for quite some time.
That's because what you saw is actually our galaxy itself, seen from the side. The classical maps of the galaxy place our solar system in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. However, 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.
Now, a team of astronomers at universities of Virginia and
Massachusetts used a supercomputer to come up with a strange answer to the question: why are we tilted in the galaxy?
Our solar system comes from another galaxy!
They used volumes of data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), a major project to survey the sky in infrared light led by the University of Massachusetts and discovered that our galaxy is in fact cannibalizing a smaller neighbor, the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.
Although it is one of the closest companion galaxies to the Milky Way, the main parent cluster is on the opposite side of the galactic core from Earth and consequently is very faint, although it covers a large area of the sky.
Milky Way is currently absorbing the dwarf galaxy, 10,000 times smaller in mass, which is getting stretched out, torn apart and gobbled up by our bigger galaxy. The stars in the Sagittarius form a cosmic spaghetti noodle wrapping itself around the Milky Way.
The really big news is the fact that our solar system is located at the exact nexus crossroads where two galaxies are actually joining. This would explain the odd angle at which we see the Milky Way in the sky, at night, meaning that our Sun is influenced by some other system.
This could mean that our solar system could in fact have come from the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.
"This first full-sky map of Sagittarius shows its extensive interaction with the Milky Way," said Steven Majewski, University of Virginia professor of astronomy and lead author on the paper describing the results. "Both stars and star clusters now in the outer parts of the Milky Way have been 'stolen' from Sagittarius as the gravitational forces of the Milky Way nibbled away at its dwarf companion. This one vivid example shows that the Milky Way grows by eating its smaller neighbors."
So it seems we don't have to look for aliens anymore, since we are aliens to this galaxy ourselves.
Doesn't it suck that cool things like this will never be in the news? Call me crazy but I think where we come from is a lot more interesting and profound than where Britney Spears went clubbing last night, and did she remember to wear underwear.