- 4077 - MILKYWAY
GALAXY - from the inside out? The
more galaxies you observe the more you realize that galaxies are like
snowflakes, no two are alike.
Astronomers are surmising more every day what our galaxy looks like from
the inside out.
------- 4077 - MILKYWAY GALAXY - from the inside out
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The Milky Way contains 200,000,000,000 stars and Lord knows how many
planets. But, only 10% of the total mass of the galaxy is in these stars. 1% of the mass is gas and dust residing in
the space between the stars. There is a
4,000,000 Solar Mass Blackhole at the center of our galaxy with the bulk of the
stars in the Bulge around it.
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The 1% gas and dust in the Interstellar Medium between the stars does
not sound like much. But, it is enough
mass to produce a billion stars. A star
is a self-gravitating ball of gas that gets dense enough to cause hydrogen
fusion.
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The Milky Way itself is a self-gravitating system. It wants to collapse into a single Blackhole
at the center. There are some opposing
forces that exist to resist this happening.
One of the forces is the star formations themselves.
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When gas clouds within the disk collapse and ignite into stars they radiate a continuous radiation pressure
opposing further gravitational collapse.
Another opposing force is the centripetal force of their orbiting
velocities that wants to fling the mass of stars outward.
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There is a conservation of energy in the angular momentum of this rotating
mass. The potential energy of gravity
can not decrease without a counter increase of energy in the angular
momentum. Energy can only be
transformed. Total energy can not be
reduced or increased.
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The spiral arms are zones within the galactic disk where the density of
the stars is higher. The spirals appear
as they should rotate, but, they do not.
Stars and gas rotate and simply pass through these denser arms like
traffic jams.
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Stars and gas slow down in their rotation and bunch up in the Arms. As the gas and stars exit the Arms they
spread out again and resume their normal speed.
The slowdown does cause the gas to gravitate inward toward the center as
some angular momentum is transformed. It
is this inflowing gas that feeds active star formation.
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The Milky Way, and most all galaxies, are not symmetrical. The gas layer in the galactic disk has a
flare, it gets thicker farther from the center.
Our galaxy is also warped like a potato chip because of emerging Dwarf
Galaxies and the effects of the Dark Matter halo.
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The proportions of the galactic disk are about the same as a CD disk
with a ping bong ball in the center.
The galactic disk has a denser strip that is about 1,300 lightyears
thick and a less dense, wider strip, that is 6,500 lightyears thick. The CD is a little warped like it had been
laid out in the Sun.
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Consequently the edges turn up like a potato chip. The bulge in the center is not a perfect
sphere like a ping pong ball, but, more elliptical like it too was warped in
the Sun. The elliptical orbits of the
stars in the central Bulge create a Galactic Bar that is about 28,000
lightyears across.
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The whole galaxy is 100,000 lightyears across. With Dark Matter halo that we cannot see the
total galaxy is 600,000 lightyears across.
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The biggest mystery is what is all this Dark Matter. It is 90% of the total mass but we cannot see
it. It does not emit or absorb electromagnetic
energy which is how we see the rest of the galaxy. It is mass though because it does interact
with gravity. So, what could it be?
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What can we find on Earth that has similar characteristics? Nothing so far. Neutrinos are close, but,
they have almost no mass at all.
Neutrons have no electric or magnetic interactions but they can only
live for about 15 minutes outside an atomic nucleus. Neutrons quickly decay into protons and
electrons.
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Most all the matter on Earth is at its ground state or near ground state
in energy. Maybe there is a much higher
energy particle, or higher mass particle, that will show up in our biggest
particle accelerators. Does Dark Matter
have anti-Dark Matter? We would expect
so. Dark Matter creates gravity. Dark Energy creates anti-gravity. Are these Dark sides of the Universe related?
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So, the rest of the picture of our galaxy must be like cream un
disbursed, floating, in the coffee cup.
The cream is the galaxy. The coffee
is Dark Matter. Not to be shaken or
stirred.
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July 5,
2023 MILKYWAY
GALAXY - from the inside out? 1124
4077
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Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---
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reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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“Jim Detrick” -----------
--------------------- --- Wednesday, July 5, 2023 ---------------------------------
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