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Magellanic Clouds 'just passing'

Posted January 11, 2007 6:59 AM

From BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition:

Two nearby galaxies - long thought to be true companions of the Milky Way - may instead be drifters, passing through the cosmic neighbourhood. Astronomers say the Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be gravitationally bound to our galaxy. If the clouds were satellites of our galaxy, the Milky Way would contain twice as much mass as is thought.

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Anonymous Poster
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Re: Magellanic Clouds 'just passing'

01/12/2007 12:49 AM

My bet is the Milky Way is twice as massive as we previously thought. Primarily because of the dark matter in our halo. What we can't see we can't measure.

These clouds are too close not to be gravitationally effected by the Milky Way. There is nothing else in their proximity with enough mass to cause this fast movement.

We need to solve the dark matter mystery! There has got to be a WIMP that resides exterior to galaxies that is gravitationally attracted by baryonic matter. The rapid star generation/formation around the outer spiral arms indicates to me that the WIMPs are being converted to baryons somehow forming bright new stars very rapidly.

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