The chaos between galaxies following their head-on collision
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Gemini North ground-based 8-meter telescope in Hawaii. It shows two spiral galaxies about 180 million light years away following a head-on collision about 25 million years ago, in which the smaller spiral moved through the larger from the bottom to the top.
Upon exiting, the smaller spiral trailed behind it the reddish stream of material, while its outside arms on the right were bent downward. That trailing material is why astronomers have dubbed these the “Taffy Galaxies.” Imagine pulling two clumps of taffy apart. The stretched material linking the two clumps is the bridge of trailing material between these two galaxies. From the caption:
When the Taffy Galaxies’ collided, their galactic disks and gaseous components smashed right into each other. This resulted in a massive injection of energy into the gas, causing it to become highly turbulent. As the pair emerged from their collision, high-velocity gas was pulled from each galaxy, creating a massive gas bridge between them. The turbulence of the stellar material throughout the bridge is now prohibiting the collection and compression of gas that are required to form new stars.
The evolution of galaxies is incredibly slow, from the perspective of human existence. For example, this first collision 25 million years ago seems like it took a long time, but it will likely be followed by many more over the next billion years, eventually resulting in a single spherical elliptical galaxy. On the time scale of the universe, collisions every 100 million years or so means galaxies like this can mix and collide many times, and do so well within the existence of the theorized lifespan of the universe itself.
To us short-lived humans, however, this process just seems so slow it can’t possibly happen as described. But it does.
Sidebar: It appears this image was released to herald the repair of Gemini North’s primary mirror, which was damaged in two places on its edge during a recoating operation on October 20, 2022. Since then the telescope has been shut down as repair operations were undertaken. That repair is now complete, and it is expected the telescope will resume science observations in a few weeks.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Gemini North ground-based 8-meter telescope in Hawaii. It shows two spiral galaxies about 180 million light years away following a head-on collision about 25 million years ago, in which the smaller spiral moved through the larger from the bottom to the top.
Upon exiting, the smaller spiral trailed behind it the reddish stream of material, while its outside arms on the right were bent downward. That trailing material is why astronomers have dubbed these the “Taffy Galaxies.” Imagine pulling two clumps of taffy apart. The stretched material linking the two clumps is the bridge of trailing material between these two galaxies. From the caption:
When the Taffy Galaxies’ collided, their galactic disks and gaseous components smashed right into each other. This resulted in a massive injection of energy into the gas, causing it to become highly turbulent. As the pair emerged from their collision, high-velocity gas was pulled from each galaxy, creating a massive gas bridge between them. The turbulence of the stellar material throughout the bridge is now prohibiting the collection and compression of gas that are required to form new stars.
The evolution of galaxies is incredibly slow, from the perspective of human existence. For example, this first collision 25 million years ago seems like it took a long time, but it will likely be followed by many more over the next billion years, eventually resulting in a single spherical elliptical galaxy. On the time scale of the universe, collisions every 100 million years or so means galaxies like this can mix and collide many times, and do so well within the existence of the theorized lifespan of the universe itself.
To us short-lived humans, however, this process just seems so slow it can’t possibly happen as described. But it does.
Sidebar: It appears this image was released to herald the repair of Gemini North’s primary mirror, which was damaged in two places on its edge during a recoating operation on October 20, 2022. Since then the telescope has been shut down as repair operations were undertaken. That repair is now complete, and it is expected the telescope will resume science observations in a few weeks.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
Neat oh !
Humans are not very good with very long or very short timescales. 40 years (an adult active lifetime) is about our maximum and 1 second is about our minimum. There are natural exceptions and one can get used to it after a while. I often work in high micro-second to low milli-second ranges, but I still find “5msec is too slow” to be a very strange statement.
The 2000 year run of the Catholic Church is a major exception, not the rule.
The smallest time frame I have directly observed was in the game Rock Band. I could easily detect video/audio synchronization issues to about 30msecs. People easily deal with 200msec intervals, they just don’t think they do. Time how long a pass in basketball takes – now do hockey. But ask someone about it and they’ll say “about a second.” Conversely, ask someone how long it took to slam on the brakes after seeing a problem driving. They’ll say “instantly”, but it is about 200msec (260 or so for us old folks).
I can barely deal with 1000s of years. 40,000 years of agriculture is a nearly meaningless statement to me. A 4,000,000,000 year old planet is a meaningless statement to me. The fact that the universe is three to four times older than that means nothing. It’s just too long. Going the other way is worse. Eventually, all the stars burn out, then all the black holes evaporate. The time between now and then might as well be infinite.