Giant “ball Of Fire” Hurtling Through Space

[Reverend AtheiStar]

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060612_fireball.htm

 

Giant “ball of fire” hurtling through space

 

June 12, 2006

Courtesy European Space Agency

and World Science staff

 

Astronomers say they have found a comet-like “ball of fire,” over a billion times weightier than our Sun, plowing into a distant galaxy cluster.

 

By far the largest object of its kind ever identified, scientists say, it’s estimated to be moving at over 2.7 million kilometres (1.7 million miles) per hour.

 

“The size and velocity of this gas ball is truly fantastic,” said Alexis Finoguenov of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Baltimore, Md., and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, one of the researchers.

 

The gas ball doesn’t emit visible light, though it contains visible galaxies and spews X-rays, a high-energy form of light, he added. The researchers used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray satellite to study these.

 

The fireball is estimated to be about three million light years long, more than two billion times the width of our solar system. A light year is the distance light travels in a year.

 

The object is in a cluster of galaxies called Abell 3266, millions of light years from Earth, thus posing no danger to us, the researchers said. The cluster, one of the most massive such agglomerations in the southern sky, contains hundreds of galaxies and hot gas.

 

It’s also part of a “supercluster”—or cluster of galaxy clusters—called Horologium-Reticulum.

 

Both cluster and supercluster are still growing, said Mark Henriksen, also of the University of Maryland, a member of the research team. The supercluster will become one of the largest mass concentrations in the nearby universe, he added; the fireball is a sign of that growth.

 

“This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assemblies of galaxies we know,” said Finoguenov.

 

The object appears from Earth as a circular glow of X-ray light with a comet-like tail nearly half the size of the moon, the astronomers said.

 

The gas ball is 46 million degrees C (83 million degrees F), Finoguenov added; the surrounding gas is even hotter, but emits fewer X-rays because it is sparser.

 

“What interests astronomers is not just the size of the gas ball but the role it plays in the formation and evolution of structure in the universe,” said Francesco Miniati of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, another of the scientists.

 

The group produced an “entropy map” of the gas ball, a technique that allows for separation of comet gas from the cluster gas based on temperature and density.

 

The map shows gas being stripped from the gas ball’s core and forming a large tail containing lumps of colder and denser gas, they said. This results in a comet-like formation. They added that about a sun’s worth of mass falls away each hour, not unlike the way dust sloughs off a comet’s tail.

 

The fireball wouldn’t actually related to comets in any way, other than in its general form. Comets are balls of dust and ices that are tiny compared to the reported fireball.

 

With the fireball, “We are seeing structure formation in action,” said Henriksen. The cluster’s hot gas is “stripping off and dispersing gas that perhaps one day will seed star and galaxy growth within the cluster.”

[Fweethawt]

“This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assemblies of galaxies we know,” said Finoguenov.

Let me guess - this dude is a creationist?

 

If not, I'm sure that he could have picked a better choice for words.

[HuaiDan]

If not, I'm sure that he could have picked a better choice for words.

 

Why?

 

Unless you're talking about the words "being delivered" assumes a deliverer. I'm pretty sure that wasn't his intent, but you never know.

 

If that were the case, the creator wouldn't have to deliver it. He'd just create it in place, right?

[Fweethawt]

If not, I'm sure that he could have picked a better choice for words.

 

Why?

 

Unless you're talking about the words "being delivered" assumes a deliverer. I'm pretty sure that wasn't his intent, but you never know.

If that's not what was to be assumed, then it's a pretty safe bet that Domino's doesn't need drivers.

 

If that were the case, the creator wouldn't have to deliver it. He'd just create it in place, right?

Umm. yeah. Somethin' like that.

 

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

“This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assemblies of galaxies we know,” said Finoguenov.

Let me guess - this dude is a creationist?

 

If not, I'm sure that he could have picked a better choice for words.

 

 

I dunno, I don't really see a reference to a "creator" in that quote.

The gas is just a "building block" in the sense that it could seed the

formation of hundreds of stars and galazies. It is "being delivered"

by entirely natural processes. It's hard to say what this scientist's

religious perspective is based on that quote alone.

 

I'm having a harder time wrapping my mind around gas that is

millions of degrees Centigrade. (Not saying that it isn't, it's just that

the concept is pretty hard to grasp....)

[Asimov]

Does it look like this?

 

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

Does it look like this?

 

 

 

 

[Reverend AtheiStar]

“This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assemblies of galaxies we know,” said Finoguenov.

Let me guess - this dude is a creationist?

 

If not, I'm sure that he could have picked a better choice for words.

 

I'm thinking it was an innocent metaphor, but I could be wrong.

[Thurisaz]

Does it look like this?

 

Nah, like this:

 

 

 

(I'd have posted a shadow of its mirror image too, but there isn't much to see of a Shadow Death Cloud... )