Astronomy Picture of the DayDiscover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 September 30 Drawing Credit & Copyright: David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA) & Gabriel Perez (IAC) Explanation: Is our Milky Way Galaxy out to lunch? Recent wide field images and analyses now indicate that our home galaxy is actually still in the process of devouring its closest satellite neighbor. This unfortunate neighbor, the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy, is now seen to be part of a larger Sagittarius Tidal Stream, a loose filament of stars, gas, and possibly dark matter that entangles the Milky Way. An artist's depiction of the stream is shown above. Speculation also holds that the Sagittarius Dwarf was once pulled through the Milky Way disk very close to our Sun's current location. An important resulting realization is that galaxies contain a jumble of clumps and filaments of both dim and dark matter.
< | Archive | Index | Search | Calendar | Glossary | Education | About APOD | > Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry
Bonnell (USRA) |
________________________________
Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
