Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
Posted on 01/09/2020 5:13:31 PM PST by BenLurkin
Stars are formed within large clouds of gas and dust known as stellar nurseries. While star formation was once seen as a simple gravitational process, we now know it is a complex dance of interactions. When one star forms it can send shock waves through the interstellar medium that trigger other stars to form. Supernovae and galactic collisions can trigger the creation of stars as well.
In the late 1800s, astronomer Benjamin Gould studied OB stars and found that many of them lie within a partial ring within our galaxy, titled about 20 degrees from the plane of the Milky Way. It came to be known as the Gould Belt. We are within this region of the Milky Way, which is one of the reasons there are so many bright stars in the night sky.
But once again we’re beginning to learn that things aren’t quite so simple. Recently a team looked at data gathered from the Gaia spacecraft to make a detailed map of the position and motion of bright stars in the Gould Belt regions. From this, they created a 3-D map of interstellar gas and dust. They found that rather than being arranged in a ring structure, the stellar nurseries followed a narrow region that follows a sinusoidal curve. It is about 9,000 light-years across, and rises and falls about 500 light-years above and below the galactic plane.
This complex structure throws shade on the idea that Gould’s Belt exists at all. Its appearance could just be due to our view of this wave structure. It isn’t clear what formed this filament structure, but it does resemble a kind of ripple effect as if something collided with our galaxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Ping...
It’s the Nexus. And I cannot wait.
Obviously Trump’s fault.
And coal fired power plants.
My eyes have been deceiving me?
“a narrow region that follows a sinusoidal curve”
I wonder what the ordinate and abscissa are used to see that curve.
Ordinate is y-axis, abscissa is x-axis. I’m guessing that the abscissa is time or something related to time and the ordinate is something energy related.
Call it a WAG.
This video has some spectacular footage of the Milky Way viewed from the Atacama Desert in Chile.
There are some gaseous bodies visible which are well away from the mass center of the Milky Way. Does anyone know what they are?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGY5sLdyajk
Magnificent! Thanks.
Thank you for sharing. Absolutely GORGEOUS!
That said, y’all can see The Milky Way pretty much on any Summer evening from my front porch in SE Wisconsin.
The Milky Way seems so close you could bat it down with a broom! ;)
Treat yourselves! GTF OUT of the City! There’s a whole, big, UNFATHOMABLE Universe out there - and The Milky Way is just the START! :)
“Q” clapped.
“Q” surfing the wave.
The best my connection can view it in is 1080p. I bet in 4K it’s spectacular.
Oooh! Ahhh! Will ping later...
Some of the items that you think are gas clouds are actually star clouds. The rest could be the Gum nebula complex in Vela, the Eta Carina area, or the massive amount of interstellar gases around Antares/Rho Ophiuchus.
Wasn’t enough points of reference to get a good fix.
At minute 1:37 in your video is the Sagittarius part of the Milky way. The bright Orange star is Antares, to the left is the dark “Pipe Nebula” or the “horse”. To the very far left is 47 Tuc and the Small Magellanic cloud. We are in a marina in Daytona without good wifi, so, I can’t see details too well.
Most of the rest of the views appear to be either Carina or Sagittarius.
3:32 is the Large Magellanic cloud. 3:35 is the center of the galaxy (M8 and M20 are the two bright gas clouds on the right) After that is Eta Carina.
Bout the best I can do at this time of night. More questions? Please ask!
It’s the nexus of the crisis
The origin of storms
Just the place to hopelessly
Encounter time and then came me
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Call me Desdinova, eternal light
These gravely digs of mine
Will surely prove a sight
And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
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