The other side of Space
I have been reading a few articles on astronomy lately. What I found the most interesting was research that has been going on in regard to the center of our galaxy, the "Milky Way" galaxy. Let's review, our galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central core of stars and outer arms that spiral outward from the center. The central core of our galaxy is thought to have a black hole roughly the diameter of the distance from the earth to the sun.
Recent measurements of stars in that area of space actually show a large amount of motion amoung stars there as they orbit the black hole. Maybe they are really going down the "drain," I don't know. Anyways, the central part of our galaxy is in the area of the sky called the "Milky Way." That is the area of the dense central part of our galaxy.
It turns out the Milky Way, has interesting things hidden on its far side.
The Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy is positioned behind the Milky Way's center, where we can't see it. It was spotted by tracking the occasional star that peeks out enough to be seen.
Here is the neat part. If our galaxy swings around so that our solar system is on the other side, we would be able to see this billion-solar-mass galaxy. It would appear as the largest object in the night sky.
This galaxy would appear to be 40 times wider than the moon. I have created a picture of the way I imagine the night sky would look if this were the case.
It would be an awsome sight to see such an object in the night sky. Perhaps in 100 million years when we rotate to that side of our galaxy we will see this; or perhaps it will have been sucked into our own galaxy. Anyways, it has me thinking.
Later.
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