Sci/Tech Giant space bubbles baffle astronomers

tom_mai78101

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Two giant gas bubbles - each one 25,000 light-years wide - discovered in our galaxy are baffling astronomers.

The two vast structures, stretching to the north and to the south of the centre of the Milky Way, are so big that a beam of light, travelling at 186,282 miles per second, would take 50,000 years to get from the edge of one to the edge of the other.

The previously unseen bubbles were discovered by astronomer Doug Finkbeiner, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, using NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope. He admitted yesterday: "We don't fully understand their nature or origin."

They span more than half the visible sky, from the constellation of Virgo to the constellation of Grus, and are thought to be millions of years old. They were not noticed before because they were lost in a fog of gamma radiation across the sky.

 
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Darthfett

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Diameter of the Milky Way: 100,000 light years.

Span of the two Giant Space Bubbles: 50,000 light years.

...

We MISSED this? :p

EDIT: Image from source:

nasa_1759030b.jpg
 

Samael88

Evil always finds a way
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Milkyway got balls:confused:
Does this mean that we will see more galaxys at some point?
 

pr0-assasin

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i just wonder will the bubbles collide and form one massive bubble that will travel and envelop the earth and all surrounding planets and the sun and kill us all?
 

Ninja_sheep

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Seriously, how can there be north and south in space?
It's pretty much a thing for earth because it has a magnetic field.

My compass doesn't work in space.
 

hunterrravyn

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Seriously, how can there be north and south in space?
It's pretty much a thing for earth because it has a magnetic field.

My compass doesn't work in space.

It will work, but not as intended.
 

Miz

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150 Elephants supposedly can fit into one American Football field, there are 17.6 football fields in a mile. Now one light year equals 5,865,696,000,000 miles, some calculations here and there I have concluded that in that space of ONE of those bubbles we can fit. 387,980,986,800,000,000,000 ELEPHANTS IN THAT BUBBLE

775,961,973,600,000,000,000 ELEPHANTS IN BOTH BUBBLES TECHNICALLY. :D
 

seph ir oth

Mod'n Dat News Jon
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150 Elephants supposedly can fit into one American Football field, there are 17.6 football fields in a mile. Now one light year equals 5,865,696,000,000 miles, some calculations here and there I have concluded that in that space of ONE of those bubbles we can fit. 387,980,986,800,000,000,000 ELEPHANTS IN THAT BUBBLE

775,961,973,600,000,000,000 ELEPHANTS IN BOTH BUBBLES TECHNICALLY. :D

It's more elephants than that buddy. How many football fields are in a square mile? 484. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_football_fields_does_100_square_miles_equal

Based off of that, how many square miles are there in a bubble? Pi * radius ^ 2. Pi * 12500 ^ 2 = 490873852.12340519350978802863742 = 490873852

490873852 * 5865696000000 = 2879316790180992000000 miles

2879316790180992000000 * 484 = 1393589326447600128000000 football fields

1393589326447600128000000 * 150 = 209038398967140019200000000 elephants

Numerical difference is more noticeable if you place them side by side:

387980986800000000000
209038398967140019200000000

Keep in mind that's only along a 2D plane of elephants (filling an area of the circle, or a "slice" if you will). We could fit way more in the full volume of the bubble.
 

esb

Because none of us are as cruel as all of us.
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I think Miz meant fitting the elephants head to tail in diameter, not area.

And how big are the elephants? ~_^
 

Jindo

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The light years was only an estimation of their combined diameters, remembering that doesn't cover the entire sphere. This is my inferior mathematical intellect's attempt at calculating the number of elephants in the volume of the balls.

Average elephant size (African) = 10.5 feet = 3.2004 metres (according to google)
bubble radius = 12500 light years = 12500 * (9.4605284 * 10^15) metres (also according to google)
Size of one bubble (assuming it's a sphere and not a circle) = 4/3 * Pi * bubble radius ^ 3 = 6.927313298 * 10^60 metres cubed
Number of elephants that fit in to one bubble = (6.927313298 * 10^60) / 3.2004 = 2.164514841 * 10^60 elephants
Number of elephants that fit in to both bubbles = 2(2.164514841 * 10^60) = 4.329029683 * 10^60 elephants

The moral is that there aren't enough elephants to put in the bubbles :C
 

phyrex1an

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Facts:
* 4.329029683 * 10^60 elephants has more mass than the observable universe (assuming the elephants isn't part of it ofc).
* 4.329029683 * 10^60 elephants spread out over 12500 light years would form a black hole (the biggest ever too, see above point)
 
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