Ken Crawford
19-11-2011, 10:37 AM
I am sorry about the long post but the background information is very important to this image.
Over a year ago I imaged a galaxy for the star stream survey headed by Dr. David Martinez-Delgado. David is the principal investigator of the Stellar Tidal Stream Survey at the Max-Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany.
Cold Dark Matter (or CDM) is a theory that most of the material in the universe cannot be seen (dark) and that it moves very slowly (cold). It is currently the leading theory that helps explain the formation of galaxies, galaxy groups and even the current known structure of the universe. One of the problems with the theory is that it predicts large amounts of small satellite galaxies called dwarf galaxies. These small galaxies are about 1000th the mass of our Milky Way but the problem is, these are not observed. If this theory is correct, then where are all of the huge amounts of dwarf galaxies that should be there?
David believes the reason we do not see large amounts of dwarf galaxies is because they are absorbed (eaten) by larger galaxies as part of the galaxy formation. So minor merger evidence is what our team searches for.
I am excited to announce that my latest contribution has resulted in a professional letter that has been recently accepted by the Astronomical Journal. There are a few things that make this very special. One, is that Carlos Frenk the director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University (UK) and his team found that my image of galaxy NGC7600 was similar enough to help validate their computer model (simulation). Carlos has been on several shows on the Science and Discovery channels, to name a few, to explain and show some of these amazing simulations. You can read more about Carlos here ; http://www.iau.org/public_press/images/detail/iau1103c (http://www.iau.org/public_press/images/detail/iau1103c)
I could write much more but I believe you get the picture.
Here is a link to the image and the N-Body simulations. The N-Body Sims at at the bottom of the page.
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Galaxies/NGC7600/NGC7600.htm
For those who are interested, here is a direct link to the AJ Letters;
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2864
I did show some of this at AAIC but it is now offical because the AJ Letter as been accepted.
I do appologize for taking so much bandwidth on this post and thank you for taking the time to look . .
Over a year ago I imaged a galaxy for the star stream survey headed by Dr. David Martinez-Delgado. David is the principal investigator of the Stellar Tidal Stream Survey at the Max-Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany.
Cold Dark Matter (or CDM) is a theory that most of the material in the universe cannot be seen (dark) and that it moves very slowly (cold). It is currently the leading theory that helps explain the formation of galaxies, galaxy groups and even the current known structure of the universe. One of the problems with the theory is that it predicts large amounts of small satellite galaxies called dwarf galaxies. These small galaxies are about 1000th the mass of our Milky Way but the problem is, these are not observed. If this theory is correct, then where are all of the huge amounts of dwarf galaxies that should be there?
David believes the reason we do not see large amounts of dwarf galaxies is because they are absorbed (eaten) by larger galaxies as part of the galaxy formation. So minor merger evidence is what our team searches for.
I am excited to announce that my latest contribution has resulted in a professional letter that has been recently accepted by the Astronomical Journal. There are a few things that make this very special. One, is that Carlos Frenk the director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University (UK) and his team found that my image of galaxy NGC7600 was similar enough to help validate their computer model (simulation). Carlos has been on several shows on the Science and Discovery channels, to name a few, to explain and show some of these amazing simulations. You can read more about Carlos here ; http://www.iau.org/public_press/images/detail/iau1103c (http://www.iau.org/public_press/images/detail/iau1103c)
I could write much more but I believe you get the picture.
Here is a link to the image and the N-Body simulations. The N-Body Sims at at the bottom of the page.
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Galaxies/NGC7600/NGC7600.htm
For those who are interested, here is a direct link to the AJ Letters;
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2864
I did show some of this at AAIC but it is now offical because the AJ Letter as been accepted.
I do appologize for taking so much bandwidth on this post and thank you for taking the time to look . .