Comments on: Setting the bar

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:32:07 +0000

13. Mitchell

Interesting, how the same thing keeps getting re-discovered over and over.

I became quite attuned to traffic waves as a young driver in LA,,,50 years ago. Glad someone finally decided to formalize these observations.

Gary 7

By: Mitchell

Mitchell — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:03:07 +0000

For analogy, consider travelling waves in highway traffic.
http://math.mit.edu/projects/traffic/ http://trafficwaves.org/

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:55:50 +0000

10. Brian Too

“Perhaps we should send them some snaps so they can appreciate it properly”

That has my vote. What better way to express our interest than to display our appreciation of their beauty.

Of course, some paranoid could really screw up this idea,,,

Gary 7

By: Thomas A.

Thomas A. — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 02:59:47 +0000

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint Exupéry

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:12:08 +0000

Any residents of this galaxy would have no idea how handsome their home is. Perhaps we should send them some snaps so they can appreciate it properly. Hey, that gives us an excuse to guilt them into returning the favor!

By: t-storm

t-storm — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:19:22 +0000

Near the top of the upper arm, just below it you can see another more distant spiral galaxy.

I’m guessing the morality is more or less look at an issue through a different set of eyes and you’ll see a different point.

Space is so weird. How is it even remotely possible that we are the only place that has life?

By: Rhacodactylus

Rhacodactylus — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:53:57 +0000

Man phil, even if I never read a word you wrote, I’d still subscribe to your blog for the pictures.

By: Tribeca Mike

Tribeca Mike — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:42:59 +0000

“Any sort of perturbation … can disturb the disk, causing the spirals to form.

“The same goes for bars.”

Oh brother, tell me about it. (Places ice bag on head)

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:16:00 +0000

What a magnificent, splendid, marvellous, fabulous, superluminous image.

Our own Milky Way is a barred spiral with “spurs” – our Sun is currently located in the Orion spur unless I’m very much mistaken.

Galaxies come in a lot of flavors.

Milky? Dark? Honeycomb? Caramel whirl? Blueberry fizz? Golden egg elliptical?

By: chris

chris — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:23:18 +0000

the thing that trips me out the most is that there appear to be two distinct bars! the visible and IR images show the long “horizontal” bar, but you can also see that the spiral arms keep spiraling inward to attach to the elongated core, skewed about 60 degrees from the main bar and itself forming an apparently independent bar.

one thing i love about pictures of galaxies is how many other, more distant galaxies you can see in the background. if you embiggen the IR photo, the reddish blob in the spiral arm near the top resolves into a near perfect pinwheel – another spiral galaxy in the background.