BS: When Things Quiet Down....

Subject: RE: BS: When Things Quiet Down....
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 03:31 PM

Trust me, Amos. Around here, things NEVER slow down.......

Subject: RE: BS: When Things Quiet Down....
From: okthen
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM

"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at.........."

Subject: RE: BS: When Things Quiet Down....
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 03:23 PM

1) These guys need to get out more.

2) They also need to lay off the narcotic before they are completely null and void.

3) Will I have to regear the speedometer in my car? What about tire pressure?

Spaw

Subject: When Things Quiet Down....
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 03:15 PM

If you thought you were finally gonna get a quiet moment, consider this peculiar fact -- we're in a pack, like Marlon Brando in the Wild One, steaming through the cosmos at 600 kilometers for every second we breath...The following dissertation is from the Supercomputing center at this site.

"Precise measurements made by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite launched in late 1989 determined the
spectrum to be exactly characteristic of a blackbody at 2.735 K. The velocity of the satellite about the Earth, the Earth
about the Sun, the Sun about the Galaxy, and the Galaxy through the universe actually makes the temperature seem
slightly hotter (by about one part in 1,000) in the direction of motion rather than away from it. The magnitude of this
effect--the so-called dipole anisotropy--allows astronomers to determine that the Local Group of galaxies is moving at a
speed of about 600 km/sec in a direction that is 45 from the direction of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Such motion is not
measured relative to the galaxies themselves (the Virgo galaxies have an average velocity of recession of about 1,000
km/sec with respect to the Milky Way system) but relative to a local frame of reference in which the cosmic microwave
background radiation would appear as a perfect Planck spectrum with a single radiation temperature.

The origin of the "peculiar velocity" of 600 km/sec for the Local Group presents an interesting problem. A component of
this velocity may be induced by the gravitational attraction of the excess mass above the cosmological mean represented
by the Virgo cluster; however, it is now believed that the Virgo component is relatively small, at best 200-300 km/sec. A
more important contribution may come from the mass of a "Great Attractor" at a distance of 108 million light-years
connected to the Local Supercluster, but this interpretation is somewhat controversial since much of the supposed
grouping lies behind the obscuration of the plane of the Milky Way. In any case, the generation of the large peculiar
velocity of the Local Group of galaxies probably requires invoking an augmentation in dark matter of the gravitational
attraction of the observable galaxies by a factor of roughly 10."

Regards,

Amos