Monstrous Gas Cloud Ejected from Milky Way 70 million years ago is Coming Back

And when they say monstrous they mean 11,000 light-years long and 2,500 light-years across !
The cloud , known as the Smith Cloud , was discovered in the early 60s and was originally thought to be a failed Galaxy but now scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the Smith Cloud's chemical composition believe the cloud was somehow ejected from the Milky Way some 70 million years ago and is now coming home , when it arrives they believe the collision could create as many as 2 million new suns.

No Doom porn though as they say it won't happen for about another 30 Million years.

This composite image shows the size and location of the Smith Cloud on the sky. The cloud appears in false-color, radio wavelengths as observed by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The visible-light image of the background star field shows the cloud's location in the direction of the summer constellation Aquila. The cloud is 15 degrees across in angular size — the width of an outstretched hand at arm's length. The apparent size of the full moon is added for comparison.

"The cloud is an example of how the galaxy is changing with time," explained team leader Andrew Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "It's telling us that the Milky Way is a bubbling, very active place where gas can be thrown out of one part of the disk and then return back down into another."

"Our galaxy is recycling its gas through clouds, the Smith Cloud being one example, and will form stars in different places than before. Hubble's measurements of the Smith Cloud are helping us to visualize how active the disks of galaxies are," Fox said.
hubblesite.org...

Some clouds just don't get the message , get out and stay out !

That fart you thought you could sneak out will always come back to haunt you...

a reply to: Indigent

OK that was funny.. butt!

Now that is some cool stuff to dwell on, S+F!

a reply to: gortex

Gravity? is it that strong? This is pretty cool if you ask me. Good find! 😄

a reply to: gortex

So the galaxy farted and now the smell is comeing back to hit us

That's funny, the 30 million figure pops up all the time. Earth passes through the mid-plane of the galactic disc once every 30 million years, that can cause a bit of a problem for us Earth dwellers since everything becomes somewhat unstable, disturbing orbital patterns of Comets and what not. Then we have a newish estimate of Earth's end timeline, now thought to be 1.5 billion years, (that's a biggy since it means the evolutionary period could be more extensive than previously thought, btw) anyway that's us going through the mid-plane of the galaxy 300+ million times over Earth's lifetime, and this thingy is 11,000 light years long and incoming..not sure that matters though..now my head is starting to hurt, because my medulla oblongata is overheating. So I'm guessing that there will be a few minor problems on the galactic highway for a while. Take a few Heng Sangwiches along with you, just in case.

Amazing that about 70 million years ago when the Smith cloud ejected from our Milky Way nearly coincides with the great extinction of the dinosaurs.

I don't know, but I don't believe in coincidence on a galactic scale. But in 30 millions years who cares?

a reply to: gortex
Suns? Didn't think they were called Suns.

originally posted by: Nickn3
Amazing that about 70 million years ago when the Smith cloud ejected from our Milky Way nearly coincides with the great extinction of the dinosaurs.

Your right, it does, but that also means a cycle in between, plus 10 million years into the next extinction cycle!

As a doomtard, I must express my sincerest disappointment that this is 30mill years away )/:

a reply to: gortex

Thanks for posting this! Trying to wrap my mind around the idea of a traveling cloud of gas this size is just ridiculous. The collision could create 2 million new stars...and that's just an uptick in the galaxy's total. Too bad we can't actually see it visibly as it appears in the picture.