Atoms for Peace galaxy

[astroron (Ron)]

Just in from ESO this is a fantastic image
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1044/

[CraigS]

Yes great image, Ron thanks kindly for the post .. there's a few videos of this one floating around, also.

I seem to always have a good chuckle at the ESO releases, nowadays.

Here they are telling the story of a merger implying cataclysmic catastrophies:

The image also shows the incredible shells that formed as gas and stars were ripped out of the colliding galaxies and wrapped around their joint core. While much material was ejected into space, other regions were compressed, sparking bursts of star formation.

and then they suddenly realise the concern they're causing the reader (because of their propensity for hype), so they reverse the spin in the final paragraphs:

But don’t panic: the distance between stars within a galaxy is vast, so it is unlikely that our Sun will end up in a head-on collision with another star during the merger.

I mean like .. we'll bury the possibility of the Sun/Earth getting ripped out of its comfy place in the M. W. galaxy and find itself amongst bursts of star formation, and implant a thought along the lines of don't worry about us getting wiped out by a head-on star-Sun collisions, though ….
!!!??!!!


Funny stuff … (apart from the delivery, I do find the content to be very interesting) ..

Cheers
PS: Mind you, the US journos and NASA releases have their own type of hype too .. just different to ESOs. Ahh .. interesting times !!

[Suzy]

Wow, great pic!!! Thanks Ron .

I found this one line particularly interesting...

"The result was the formation of hundreds of very young star clusters, around 50 to 500 million years old, which are speculated to be the progenitors of globular clusters."

The sooner we come to really understanding globs, the better.

Craig, some of it sounds like an American doco- "ripped out", as if it happens in seconds . But all in all, a good informative read .

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by Suzy

Wow, great pic!!! Thanks Ron .

I found this one line particularly interesting...

"The result was the formation of hundreds of very young star clusters, around 50 to 500 million years old, which are speculated to be the progenitors of globular clusters."

The sooner we come to really understanding globs, the better.

Craig, some of it sounds like an American doco- "ripped out", as if it happens in seconds . But all in all, a good informative read .

Goodness me !!
All of the celebrities have turned up in the Science Forum tonight !!
Next thing ya know .. it might be Travolta himself !!

Cheers