Massive Cloud on Collision Course with the Milky Way

Space Daily ^ | October 14, 2016 | Staff

[C19fan]

In 1963, an astronomy student named Gail Smith working at an observatory in the Netherlands discovered something odd-a massive cloud of gas orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. Smith's cloud contained enough gas to make 2 million stars the size of our sun, and it was moving through space at 700,000 mph.

For the next 40+ years the cloud remained a curiosity, one of a growing number of so-called high velocity clouds circling the Milky Way--interesting but not sensational.

Then something changed. In the mid-2000s, radio astronomer Jay Lockman and colleagues took a closer look at Smith's Cloud using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, and they were able to calculate the cloud's orbit.

[C19fan]

I'm not saying its V'ger but it is V'ger.

[pgkdan]

Smith's Cloud, it turns out, is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Thirty million years from now, give or take a few million years, it will crash into the Perseus Arm of our galaxy. The impact will compress clouds of gas in that spiral arm, causing a brilliant burst of star formation.

Not going to collide for 30 million years. I'll be too old to care by then.

[Mr. Douglas]

Must Sterilize!

[dartuser]

Maybe the missing 30,000 emails are in there ...

[beethovenfan]

I say it’s due to GLOBULL WARMING don’tcha know!

[Tax-chick]

It’s not SMOD, but it’s something.

[BenLurkin]

News guy wept and squarely told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying

[luvbach1]

The impact will compress clouds of gas in that spiral arm, causing a brilliant burst of star formation.

And what will happen to the Earth? Inquiring people want to know. Perhaps our descendants will have moved to another galaxy if the collision was to have destroyed the Earth. Not likely human being will exist 30 million years from now. And if they did, no telling what they would look like.

[shibumi]

It’s a huge cow fart.

[JBW1949]

Damn!!!! It’ll kill all the dinosaurs.....

[SIDENET]

Thirty million years from now, give or take a few million years, it will crash into the Perseus Arm of our galaxy.

Waiting...

[Tax-chick]

I’ll feel terrible each time I eat a cheezburger.

[DannyTN]

We may need to boost our copper intake.

[Arthur McGowan]

700,000 mph? That doesn’t seem so fast.

[Lucas McCain]

Plan accordingly.

[VanDeKoik]

So many dwarf galaxies have plowed into this galaxy, that this is a relatively minor thing.

Honestly new star making material is welcome.

[cloudmountain]

Maybe the missing 30,000 emails are in there ...

GOOD one!

[VanDeKoik]

Nothing will.

Galaxies only look dense, things like stares rarely impact each other.

It is even theorized that the stuff that made up our solar system is actually captured gas from a galaxy the Milky Way absorbed eons ago.

[Blue Jays]

Why has Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton done nothing to prevent this inter-galactic collision? Why does she insist on blaming Donald Trump?

[eaglestar]