© 2003-2006 David Moles
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I think I’m going to change the name of my blog to “Second-Hand Astronomy and Cosmology News”11 o'clock, October 14, 2005This time: wicked infrared pictures of the Andromeda galaxy, again over at Cosmic Variance, courtesy of the other space telescope. |
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Nice! So what's the current theory on why the Sombrerolooks the way it does? |
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Enormous Ring of Dust(TM). But did you mean, "how did it get that way?" The Sombrero really is enormous, 5-10x more massive than the Milky Way; it probably formed when two or more Andromeda-sized galaxies collided, train-wreck style, probably several billion years ago. The current dust ring could be left over from that event. Or it could be more recent -- maybe the Sombrero cannibalized something like the Milky Way in the last billion years or so? Centaurus A is doing something like that right now. |
The Sombrero is my favorite.
Um, and for completeness, supernova 1987A, imaged by the other other space telescope.
(Dammit, Moles, knock it off. And I really hate trying to read G.R. It's all soporific and... indexy. Gah.)