Free Republic

"Good heavens, miss Takamoto, you're beautiful!"

The galaxy’s empire has a new colony. Astronomers have detected a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way whose span stretches farther than nearly all other Milky Way satellites. It may belong to a small group of galaxies that is falling into our own. Giant galaxies like the Milky Way grew large when smaller galaxies merged, according to simulations. The simulations also suggest that whole groups of galaxies can fall into a single giant at the same time. The best examples in our cosmic neighbourhood are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way’s two brightest satellites, which probably orbit...

Currently, Topics are tied individual Forums, such that the 50 states (but not DC) show up as Topics for a thread posted in or moved to the GOP forum -- but the 50 states (and DC) show up as "US:(state name)" in threads posted in or moved to the News forum. Those state lists don't cross. Same goes for the duplicate Topics found in Chat and Blogger forums -- and those lists are all separate from one another. Keywords are available across all Forums.All three systems should be merged into a Tags system. Currently, the URL (which I still...

Explanation: In this celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines left of image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. Like the common household items still life painters often choose for their subjects, these clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars are also commonly found in this setting -- a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation Monoceros. The giant molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be...