Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


A galaxy with swirling arms

A galaxy with swirling arms
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was released yesterday by the science team that operates the Hubble Space Telescope. It captures a galaxy about 520 million light years away that appears to have been reshaped due to a galaxy merger.

That merger somehow distorted the disk of the inner galaxy, the brightest area, while also producing two sweeping spiral streams in the surrounding periphery.

Despite its unusual shape, astronomers did not choose to study this galaxy. From the caption:

This observation is a gem from the Galaxy Zoo project, a citizen science project involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world who classified galaxies to help scientists solve a problem of astronomical proportions: how to sort through the vast amounts of data generated by telescopes. A public vote selected the most astronomically intriguing objects for follow-up observations with Hubble. CGCG 396-2 is one such object, imaged here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

7 comments

  • Alex Andrite

    Galaxy Zoo Project !!!

    http://zoo1.galaxyzoo.org/Project.aspx

    Love it. Will keep an eye on it.

  • Steve Richter

    This merged galaxy will now have two black holes moving relative to each other and its combined stars? Would astronomers be able to see the path of each black hole in the form of emptiness in the wake? And explosive activity each time the black hole encounters a star?

  • Jeff Wright

    Stunning. The interplay helps mix things for life perhaps

  • Steve Richter

    Is a galaxy just like a solar system in that all the stars are in an elliptical orbit around the center or core of the galaxy? If the two black holes of two merging galaxies themselves merge, would the resulting increased core mass cause the orbiting stars to collapse into the center?

  • Ryan Lawson

    I used to do a lot of Galaxy Zoo and even assigned my astronomy classes to classify at least 500 galaxies each. Some of them actually enjoyed the assignment since they could do it on their smartphone.

    @Steve, no the gravity at a distance from the merged black holes is the same. As an example, if we were to compact our Sun down into a black hole, all of the planets in our solar system would effectively continue in their orbits as normal. The overall mass and gravity does not change, only the density.

  • Steve Richter

    “… As an example, if we were to compact our Sun down into a black hole, all of the planets in our solar system would effectively continue in their orbits as normal. …”

    yes, if the sun was a black hole, the Earth would still orbit as it does now. But if a 2nd sun mass black hole merges with our sun black hole, would that cause all the orbiting planets to collapse into the now 2x sized black hole?

    In the case of these two galaxies which have merged, what happens to the black holes of each galaxy? The attraction between the two will be tremendous, no, and they will themselves merge? Which will cause stars which had been orbiting the 1x sized black hole to now collapse into the 2x sized hole.

  • Edward

    Steve Richter Asked: “In the case of these two galaxies which have merged, what happens to the black holes of each galaxy? The attraction between the two will be tremendous, no, and they will themselves merge?

    The black holes may not be close enough to each other to collide any time soon. On a galactic scale, they are pretty small. As for the addition of another galaxy’s worth of mass, whenever galaxies collide they come out of it pretty much messed up.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *