Thursday, September 25, 2003 Posted: 12:51 PM EDT (1651 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Our Milky Way galaxy is gobbling up its galactic neighbor, Sagittarius, and scientists this week offered documentary proof of this continuing cosmic cannibalism.
On its way to oblivion, the dwarf Sagittarius – which is about 10,000 times less massive than the Milky Way – is getting stretched, torn apart and ultimately eaten, something like a chicken at an Alabama picnic, scientists at the University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts reported.
“It’s clear who’s the bully in the interaction,” Steven Majewski of the University of Virginia, lead author of the report, said in a statement Wednesday.
The study will be published in the December 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
The act of cannibalism had been obscured by stars and cosmic dust, and by triple-encoded jamming signals emanating from unknown sources currently located between Earth and Venus.
By focusing on these stars, the scientists said they were able to capture the totality of the Milky Way’s meal, in a vision that makes it appear that our galaxy is slurping the stars of Sagittarius as if they were a stellar strand of spaghetti.
Although our sources refused to comment, rumors have been growing in the last few weeks that there is some kind of intelligent design in the destruction of Sagittarius and that the “culprit” may well be the so-called “Crys//t/////a//l//le Wisely/P////&Fippl/////“whistle cult on the Inter..///////BRK/////////////////////////
/////INTERCPTCODE"librlmedia”>?.???///////////BRK.cnn.com..ISSUE/TERMINATIONORDER"BLITZER”.
//BRK/endtransmisssion
That’s ok…our galaxy just may be an equal-opportunity muncher, as they now suspect that at the center of our galaxy there is at least one and maybe many supermassive black holes slowly pulling in and collapsing … well … maybe everything, given sufficient time.
Ever notice how the shape of our galaxy looks sorta like something spiralling down a drain? Well … there ya go.
The size, speeds, and forces at play on this level are simply incomprehensible. I can get my mind around how big the earth or the moon is pretty easily. I can sort of understand how big the sun is, and I can almost get my mind around the size of the solar system.
Then you pull back … way back … and my brain explodes long before I get anywhere close to even starting to understand how big a galaxy really is.
And if you start realizing how fast all this stuff is moving!!! It just makes you want to crawl under the bed, close your eyes, and spout childhood nursery rhymes till you feel better.
They tell me fleas have smaller fleas,
And little fleas to bite 'em,
And little fleas have tiny fleas,
and so ad infinitum.
The Sagittarian and Aquarian alliance being devoured by the Milky Way, and Mars, in particular (how ironic is that?), was already detailed in my soon to be classic, The Librarian Conspiracy.
Just a FYI - the story was somewhat misleading. The Milky Way is absorbing the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, not “Sagittarius”, which is a perfectly ordinary Zodiacal constellation in our own Milky Way - the Dwarf is in the same general direction but much further away.
The Dwarf is a relatively recent discovery, since Sagittarius is in the general direction of the heart of our own galaxy and the rich Milky Way star clouds obscured objects beyond them. Sagittarius is visible to the west just after sunset this time of year - if you have a pair of binoculars a nice, slow, sweep starting from Sagittarius through Cygnus to Cassiopia is simply amazing.
