Galaxy Grande: Milky Way May Be More Massive Than Thought

Scientific American ^ | 12/3/12 | Ken Croswell

[LibWhacker]

Do not be prideful, you Milky Waylings (Wayers?, Wayans?, Wayites?)!!! We're still number two.

[cripplecreek]

Fatty fatty 2 by 4......

[Larry Lucido]

Apparently the Milky Way isn’t made out of skim milk.

[DannyTN]

Of course there are a couple of dozen galaxies circling this one. it would have helped if you hadn’t named this one after a candy bar!

[bennowens]

The only dark matter is between their ears...

[KoRn]

/mark

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

How big is it? .0000000000000000000007 OHS or .0000000000000000000000000008 OHS? Wow that is still incredibly massive.

1 unit of Obama Head Size = infinity

[cruise_missile]

I thought the science was settled on that. /sarc

[Heavyrunner]

Interesting article, but I hope Beers was misquoted on his assertion that M31 is “twice as massive” as the Milky Way.

My understanding is that while the visible disk of M31 is much larger than that of the Milky Way, the two galaxies are comparable in mass, with the Milky Way possibly proving to be the heavyweight - e.g., M31 is 7.1×10^11 compared to the Milky Way’s 1-1.5×10^12 stellar masses. This study further expands the possible size of the Milky Way to 1.6-2.4×10^12, which positively dwarfs Andromeda, unless the implication is that the methodology Beers used to calculate our galaxy’s mass has been applied to M31 as well and found to similarly expand Andromeda’s waistline.

I am somewhat suspicious of these findings because I believe we have a fairly accurate diameter of our Galaxy, and a good estimate of the orbital period of halo stars. This alone will give a good mathematical solution to galactic mass (both our own and Andromeda’s.)

[BenLurkin]

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The only dark matter is between their ears...

Oh so true. Don't get me started on dark matter.

[dartuser]

Don't get me started on dark matter

Modern science has perfected the development of theories that actually predict you wont find any evidence for them.

[TigersEye]

Lest the new work fill Milky Way residents with excessive pride, Beers says, "We're still number two." Of the several dozen galaxies that populate the Local Group, the largest remains Andromeda, which Beers estimates is at least twice as massive as the Milky Way.

Oh, yeah!?! Well the Soviet Union had about twice the land mass of the U.S.A. and where are they now?

Milky Way!!! Milky Way!!! Milky Way!!!

[Wings-n-Wind]

Do not be prideful, you Milky Waylings (Wayers?, Wayans?, Wayites?)!!! We're still number two.

****************

Hey..... maybe lighten up!
It's still Home Sweet Galaxy...

A fairly prestigious cosmic address.... IMO

[TigersEye]

Do not be prideful, you Milky Waylings (Wayers?, Wayans?, Wayites?)!!! We're still number two.

Two Milky Wayans.

[hattend]

Laz would (attempt to) hit them

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KoRn. I've got to get my other ping message back...

---

· String Theory Ping List ·

---

---

· Join · Bookmark · Topics · Google ·
· View or Post in 'blog · post a topic · subscribe ·

---

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KoRn.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[varmintman]

There’s no such thing as dark matter.

[Larry Lucido]

I'd like to move to the Twix Galaxy. The only galaxy with the cookie crunch.