A Trip to the Andromeda Galaxy Presentation
On Friday, April 2nd, 2010, the Physics and Continuing Education Departments at the University of West Georgia and the Georgia Space Grant Consortium-NASA will be hosting a free multimedia presentation entitled "A Trip to the Andromeda Galaxy."
Dr. Ben de Mayo, Emeritus Professor of Physics, has been at West Georgia since 1971, and wishes to invite everyone out to this event.
This series will focus on our "galactic twin" Andromeda which is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own, the Milky Way. Although it is the nearest galaxy it still takes approximately 2.5 million light-years to reach it. Recent observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that Andromeda contains one trillion stars, greatly surpassing the number of stars in our own galaxy. 2006 estimates put the mass of the Milky Way at 80% of the mass of Andromeda.
The galaxy is located in the Andromeda constellation which derives its named from Princess Andromeda in Greek mythology. Legend has it that she was chained to a rock according to Poseidon's request to be left and eaten alive by a sea monster. Her savior, Perseus, rescued her by killing the monster and then later on asking her hand in marriage.
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The program will take place from 7-8:30 P.M. on West Georgia's campus in the Crider Lecture Hall of the Boyd Building. The professor has been awarded a grant from the Georgia Space Grant Consortium-NASA for more than 14 consecutive years and works with undergraduate research students studying superconductors, nanotubes, battery-powered ultra light aircraft, brainwaves, Alberta oil sands and electronic music.
An interesting theory predicts that the Andromeda Galaxy and Milky Way Galaxy will collide in approximately 4.5 billion years. Theory has it that if the galaxies did collide, they would most likely merge into one larger galaxy. However, none of this will really matter because its suggested that the earth will already be inhabitable in about 1 billion years due to the gradual increasing of the Sun’s heat.
Last year, a newly found giant blob of gas named Himiko was discovered 12.9 billion light-year away and contains roughly the equivalent of 40 billion suns. Another interesting discovery recently found that dark matter may have been “felt” for the first time in a Minnesota mine.
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that is invisible and believed to make up 80% of the universe (although its extremely speculated as some believe it only makes up 25%).
Dark energy on the other hand, is “negative gravity” that plays a part in the increasing speed of universe unfolding and takes up an estimated 70% of the Universe. The rest of this percentage, which includes Earth and everything that we’ve ever seen with a telescope totals in at less than 5%.
Sasha Kashlinsky, a senior staff scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, has clocked galaxy clusters racing at up to 1000 kilometers per second which may provide proof of another universe. Kashlinsky calls this dark flow.
To get more information and become informed on future events, please visit the web site at www.nasanights.blogspot.com.
There will be another presentation entitled "A Voyage to the former planet Pluto" happening on Friday, May 14th, 2010. Having been demoted from planet to dwarf planet in 2006, the presentation will look into why this happened and include many interesting and fun facts about it.
For more information, call 678-839-4087 or 678-839-4097 or email Dr. de Mayo at bdemayo@westga.edu or to learn more about Andromeda please visit www.Nasa.gov
