A New Spin on Galactic Evolution

it makes sense that stars move but just how and why?

There’s a new concept in the works regarding the evolution of galactic arms and how they move across the structure of spiral galaxies. Robert Grand, a postgraduate student at University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, used new computer modeling to suggest that these signature features of spiral galaxies – including our own Milky Way – evolve in different ways than previously thought.



The currently accepted theory is as spiral galaxies rotate, the “arms” are actually transient structures that move across the flattened disc of stars surrounding the galactic bulge, yet don’t directly affect the movement of the individual stars themselves. This would work in much the same way as a “wave” goes across a crowd at a stadium event. The wave moves, but the individual people do not move along with it – rather, they stay seated after it has passed.

However when Grand researched this suggested motion using computer models of galaxies, he and his colleagues found that this was not what tended to happen. Instead the stars actually moved along with the arms, rather than maintaining their positions.

link HERE

so the spiral arms shepard the stars in the galaxy towards or away from the galactic center
interesting new way to veiw the spiral arms and their interactions with stars.

xploder

i think it was always the case that stars move with the arms!!! since the evidence presented over the years of the galactic black hole at the centre, if it was the case that the stars dont move with the arms then how would the black hole at the centre feed??? also if the stars didnt move with the arms then how is it we have theory of the sagitarian gallaxy being absorbed by the milky way?

i dont think this guy has proved anything but what we already know, its far from a new theory to me! moons revolve round planets, planets round stars, its just common sence that the arms of a galaxy rotate round the galactic centre and the material within the arms move with it!

reply to post by XPLodER


interesting article, but kinda funny how MS-Sci. and most people are mistaken about how things move in the universe.

do you really think the earth,planets,and everything else in the solar system is in an elliptical orbit around the sun?

not so, this is merely an illusion produced by believing in a mathematical model, i'm sure the Ptolemaics "saw" all those cycles and epicycles as "real".

when the earth completes its orbit it never arrives at the same point where it began but has drifted, in other words there are no closed orbits as the current model "shows".

our world, the sun, the spiral arms of the galaxy ["it's full of stars"], the galaxies themselves are

FALLING

into the void

the attraction of gravity counters the entropic tendency to disperse/disorganize [what these scientists were expecting]

think of a corkscrew/helix-like movement

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/37b78cc8b82a.jpg[/atsimg]

and you will be closer to the truth.