Two New Galaxies Discovered Orbiting the Milky Way

[newmoon]

Link<br /><br />Astronomers in Europe and America have discovered two new galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. One, in the constellation Boötes, is the least luminous galaxy ever seen. The other, in Canes Venatici, lies at the fringe of the Milky Way's empire of satellites.

 

[vonster]

This is another reason why I treat sweeping calculations and theories about the universe that are based on estimates of the amount of matter / mass in the entire universe, with extreme skepticism.<br /><br />We are finding entire galaxies around our own that we've never seen before? Really? <br /><br />I find this amuzing. <br /><br />I also think estimates of the size and age of the universe based on CBO and visual extimations of distant galaxy fields and other objects that are visible with our current level of technology ... <br /><br />... I have a feeling they are about as more likely to be completely wrong as anywhere close to the truth ... <br /><br /><br /><br />.

 

[michaelmozina]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>This is another reason why I treat sweeping calculations and theories about the universe that are based on estimates of the amount of matter / mass in the entire universe, with extreme skepticism.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I agree wholeheartedly. Since we can't even be sure of the number of galaxies in our neighborhood, or what kind of currents flow through these systems, the whole notion of "dark matter" seems more like "undiscovered matter" to me. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[vonster]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>"dark matter" seems more like "undiscovered matter" to me<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />yes. the calculations that imply inevitability of dark matter/energy to justify an apparently expanding universe say (based on what we can detect) that the visible matter in the universe is some tiny fraction of whats needed to cause this<br /><br />so there must be a majority of stuff we cant see.<br /><br />intuition and observation of human nature tells me that more than likely a huge chunk of that missing mass is right there in front of us in fairly obvious places - places we just cant see because our technology is too primitive and low resolution to see it.<br /><br />'hidden' galaxies (the hold BILLIONS of stars .. lol .. its not like finding an extra dollar hidden with the mothballs in your winter jacket) - objects with low light source are scattered all over the place for billions and trillions of miles and its not some mystical magical dark stuff.<br /><br />didnt someone determine recently that the majority of stars in our galaxy are red dwarves and therefore we didnt count them properly. oops! hahaha .. well what do you know, theres a few billion more<br /><br />make that trillions and trillions if you then take that simple discovery and extrapolate to the billions of galaxies we cant barely make out from this distance with our puny light and infrared telescopes.<br /><br />we can barely make it to our own moon without a herculean effort why do so many of our scientists think we're qualified to even begin to know the extent of whats out there. hubris no doubt<br /><br />i also think within a couple of generations we are going to start finding out that the further we look, the more we see ... and the false confidence people have in current theories of big bang / dark matter ... well, i think a lot of it is going to look pretty silly.<br /><br />nice try, but rather silly. <br /><br />.

 

[odysseus145]

What are you arguing against? That's exactly what dark matter is. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vonster]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Fact: Most of what we thought we knew about our Galaxy and the Universe a mere 25 years ago has turned out to be wrong<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br /><br />exactly my point, thank you for summing it up<br /><br />25 years from now, i also think it will be the same<br /><br />we will still be here in this tiny speck of a planet, trying to figure out whats really going on, and throroughly overestimating our own capabilities to do so accurately<br /><br />its a matter of human ego vs realistic appraisal and humilty. in people of above average intelligence the former all too often wins out - again, i think its kind of amuzing honestly ...<br /><br />.<br /><br /><br /><br />.<br /><br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

Let's see,<br /><br />rotates ~4 times every billion years,<br /><br />~100,000 lys across<br /><br />it's really really old<br /><br />it's got spiral arms.<br /><br /><br />Learned all that in grade school, and by jiminy, tain't that far off today. Might be a little bigger, might be a barred spiral, might be slightly less alone. Sounds like 'tweaking' to me, not revamping.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[dragon04]

Woo hoo... More discovered real matter and less of that spooky "dark matter"<br /><br />You gotta love the mundane. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[vonster]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>What are you arguing against? That's exactly what dark matter is<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />actually most of what ive read on the subject claims that - even accounting for all the galaxies and star systems and <i>known types</i> (emphasis) that might be there and unseen ... <br /><br />it still wouldnt add up to even close to what is needed to account for the speed of expansion.<br /><br />i think that not only is there way more out there of <i>known types</i> and variations of known types of matter than we think ... my intuition and common sense says that <br />some good portion of the foundations of theories that people are basing these kinds of estimates are just flat out wrong.<br /><br />it doesnt mean that we should not do our best to make educated conjectures based on what we know so far. <br /><br />i just think that people have a tendency to vastly overestimate what we know so far, then vehmently defend those estimations as fact ...<br /><br />.. mainly in order to satisfy thier need to feel smart and right about things in comparison to other people. or justify thier grant money -- or whatever the motivation, <br /><br />all of which has way more to do with human psychology than it does fact or accurate representation of reality. most of which (reality) is still way too vast for us to get a grip on and wayyy to far away for us to observe with any real accuracy<br /><br />.<br /><br />.<br /><br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

Progression to the mean.<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[vonster]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Progression to the mean.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Flatland<br /><br />.

 

[kmarinas86]

<font color="yellow">Learned all that in grade school, and by jiminy, tain't that far off today. Might be a little bigger, might be a barred spiral, might be slightly less alone. Sounds like 'tweaking' to me, not revamping.</font><br /><br />Another tweak (in the future): "All the stars and galaxies appeared farther away than they really are. General Relativity is modified to accommodate hyperbolically curved spacetime (concave lens) in the interstellar vacuum field to address the issue of anomalous stellar parallax measured outside the solar system."

 

[doubletruncation]

<i>This is another reason why I treat sweeping calculations and theories about the universe that are based on estimates of the amount of matter / mass in the entire universe, with extreme skepticism.<br /><br />We are finding entire galaxies around our own that we've never seen before? Really?</i><br /><p><br />I don't think this is quite as embarassing for cosmology or astronomy in general as you imply. In fact, the article linked in the original post makes reference to the "Missing Satellite Problem" - that is, that the number of observed dwarf galaxies is far fewer than the number predicted by what would otherwise seem to be quite successful models of how galaxies form. Finding them, in fact, helps build confidence in existing theories rather than the reverse.<br /><p><br />Moreover, it's not as if these are massive nearby galaxies that we would have expected to see before now. They are dwarfs, saying that they have "billions of stars" is way off the mark. The article gives an absolute magnitude of -5.7 for the Bootes dwarf. That would make it about 16,000 times brighter than the Sun (as the article mentions, it's less luminous than some of the brightest stars in our sky!). Assuming the local mass to light ratio applies to this galaxy, the thing would only be a few tens of thousands of solar masses... so it'd be more like a globular cluster than a galaxy in terms of its size. Finding such an object (which is exactly what theory predicts should exist in abundance) doesn't really help in solving the dark matter problem etc. Given that the milky way contains on the order of 10^11 to 10^12 stars, It's like finding out that you didn't include a person in counting the population of the united states. That doesn't mean that we were all idiots for saying that there are 300 million Americans.</p></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vonster]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>It's like finding out that you didn't include a person in counting the population of the united states. That doesn't mean that we were all idiots for saying that there are 300 million Americans<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />thanks for the perspective, i didnt really dig that deeply into the article but in this case point taken<br /><br />i merely thought the tagline for the story was amuzing because i think it does illustrate a point thats valid:<br /><br />regardless of the fact that these finds are small drops in the bucket, i still think there are huge drops if not entire bucketfulls of matter and phenomena out there that we are completely missing<br /><br />it illustrates the tendency of (humanity, science) - at any given moment/period in time - to assume our theories at that moment are on the right track about "the way things are" ...<br /><br />...when we consistantly discover, the more we look, the more we find .. and are suprised (over and over again) that we didnt really have a handle on things as much as we thought we did<br /><br />.