- Attachment: Galaxy image
- M64 is in the “Nearby Galaxies Catalog” listed as 14 million lightyears distant.
- The Celestial Handbook lists the galaxy at 20 to 25 million lightyears distant.
- The Night Sky Observer’s Guide says it is 24 million lightyears distant.
- The Hubble space Telescope press says it is 17 million lightyears away.
- The expansion of the Universe is causing M64 to recede away from us at 234 miles per second. That is 842,400 miles per hour. The Universe is thought to be expanding at the Hubble Constant rate of 47,000 miles per hour per million lightyears. That simple math puts M64 at 18 million lightyears distant.
- However, the recession speed of galaxy clusters are difficult to measure because some of the velocities are orbital velocities inside the cluster under gravitational forces. The Virgo-Coma Cluster has a wide variation of velocities depending on which galaxy you are measuring. Some 6 galaxies actually are measured as blue-shifted meaning their velocities are approaching use rather than receding.
- Therefore, actually knowing how far the Black Eyed Galaxy is away from us is “ to be determined”. Not knowing its distance means we can not calculate its actual size or luminosity.
- Located in the Constellation Coma Berenices the Black Eye got its name for the huge, complex cloud of carbon particles that surround the galaxy’s bright inner bulge.
- Normal galaxies rotate in a single direction. The Black Eyed Galaxy has counter rotating segments. The inner 3,000 lightyears radius rotates clockwise. The outer 40,000 lightyears radius rotates counter-clockwise. How can this happen?
- One explanation is that 1 billion years ago two galaxies collided. The merger somehow retained the angular momentum of both galaxies that happened to be rotating in opposite directions. The dust cloud is some of the remaining remnants of this collision. The inner region is sheared between opposite rotating formations. The collisions and frictions encountered create active formation of hot, blue, young stars. Surrounding these new stars are pink clouds of glowing hydrogen gas fluorescing from the ultraviolet light of the hot stars.
- Another explanation for what we see is that possibly the galaxy is not just a disk but also a sphere. There could be an extended halo of stars surrounding the central bulge and disk. If a few billion stars exists above and below the plane of the disk they would fill in the dark lanes making them less dark. That would explain why we see the dust better on the galaxy near side than on the far side. We would be looking through more stars. It would be like looking through a fog of light.
- Since astronomers can not seem to accurately measure the distance the guess as to the size of the galaxy is that it is about ½ the size of the Milky Way Galaxy. We can see the full size in the infrared because infrared wavelengths can penetrate the dust where as visible light wavelengths can not.
- Once we get this figured out , an announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Wednesday, January 11, 2012
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