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# Star Cluster Ejected From Galaxy At 2,000,000 MPH

#### Soulskill posted about 8 months ago | from the get-out-and-stay-out dept.

133

William Robinson writes: "According to a new report, a globular cluster of several thousand stars (compressed into a space just a few dozen light-years apart) is being thrown out of galaxy M87. The cluster, named HVGC-1, is traveling at a rate of 2 million miles per hour. The discovery was made by Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his team while studying the space around the supergiant elliptical galaxy M87. Caldwell and colleagues think M87 might have two supermassive black holes at its center. The star cluster wandered too close to the pair, which picked off many of the cluster's outer stars while the inner core remained intact. The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed."

### Velocity (5, Interesting)

#### dtmos (447842) | about 8 months ago | (#46898509)

Two million miles per hour is less than 0.003c, but still quite a clip, even in astronomical terms.

Since they're discussing velocity (vector speed), and not just speed, the headline is correct in saying " -1000 km/s" when the measured value is -1025 km/s, but one can debate whether the abstract is correct in saying "an extraordinary blueshift of -1025 km/s", rather than "an extraordinary blueshift of 1025 km/s", since "blueshift" gives one the sign of the velocity already.

### Re:Velocity (3, Interesting)

#### KrackerJax (83403) | about 8 months ago | (#46898531)

It would take a ship travelling at that speed roughly two days to travel from Earth to the Sun (1 AU). In those terms it doesn't seem all that fast. Pedestrian, really.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898687)

It may not be all that fast, but I think going that far above the speed limit would get you the chair in my town.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### someone1234 (830754) | about 8 months ago | (#46901405)

No, either he would be dead on Earth, or escape into space :)

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898715)

But if you take into account the mass of all of those stars, it's a heck of a lot of momentum!

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### FatdogHaiku (978357) | about 8 months ago | (#46900551)

You'll be circling the globe roughly every 8 seconds so use a different street each time you go through town...
they won't have time to set a trap before shock waves have wiped the town, chair and all, off the map.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### FatdogHaiku (978357) | about 8 months ago | (#46900807)

Don't know why I saw 12 million instead of 2 million in TFS... still, even 555 miles per second should have a nice shock wave.

### Re:Velocity (5, Funny)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899101)

Only on Slashdot is a speed of 2*10^^6 MPH
1) expressed in imperial units
2) called "pedestrian" by some poster
Good stuff.

### Re:Velocity (2)

#### FatdogHaiku (978357) | about 8 months ago | (#46900847)

Only on Slashdot is a speed of 2*10^^6 MPH
1) expressed in imperial units
2) called "pedestrian" by some poster
Good stuff.

1) You won't be dissing those "imperial units" once the Death Star is finished!
2) I have it on good authority [youtube.com] that everything is already moving at 12,000,000 a minute so yes, 2 million miles an HOUR does seem "pedestrian".

I'll save you the trouble on the numbers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Song [wikipedia.org]

### Re:Velocity (2)

#### gewalker (57809) | about 8 months ago | (#46901239)

I'm sure all would be happier if this were expressed in more familiar units

555.55 miles per sec
894.08 kilometers per sec
2300 times the muzzle velocity of a S&W 40 cal bullet
2600 times the speed of sound
2.1 E4 times the speed of a fastball
8.7 e4 times the speed of Usain Bolt
2 e13 times the speed of grass growing
5.376 E9 furlongs per for fortnight

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899389)

Pedestrian? Absolutely!

The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed.

Wake me up when a cluster gets flung at ludicrous speed.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### OakDragon (885217) | about 8 months ago | (#46900261)

Never seen the movie.

Still get the reference.

Modding myself up this time.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### siddesu (698447) | about 8 months ago | (#46900029)

2 mil miles per hour is something like 1000 km/s. Considering that the escape velocity on the surface of the Sun is something like 600km/s that's not pedestrian at all.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### Keith111 (1862190) | about 8 months ago | (#46900803)

I had to convert 2,000,000 MPH into M/s to understand how fast this actually was in the context of space. #EVEproblems

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898605)

I'm just impressed that the "journalist" didn't try to convert the metric estimate with one significant digit into an exact mph with 8 apparently significant digits.

More relevantly, with a whole lot of calculus and some really interesting tech advances, this might provide an example of how to do some STL intergalactic travel.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46902049)

Yeah we've got tons of supermassive black holes hanging around that we can conveniently slingshot around.

### Re:Velocity (5, Interesting)

#### pr0t0 (216378) | about 8 months ago | (#46898841)

I wonder if the Earth was in orbit around a star that was part of such a cluster, would we notice the effects of such an ejection? Certainly the night sky would change, but the whole process could take of millions of years. Would we feel any immediate effects from the proximity to the black holes? What would our current state of technology, instrumentation and measurement tell us about our relative place and speed? And what, if any change would there be in our civilization's future. Not being in the galaxy seems isolating, but if the host star remains unchanged perhaps there is no change in our destiny. Or perhaps that by the time we developed interstellar travel we'd be too far from the host galaxy to travel to anything other than the stars in our cluster.

It'd make for a good sci-fi book I think.

### Re:Velocity (1, Interesting)

#### siddesu (698447) | about 8 months ago | (#46900213)

would we notice the effects of such an ejection?

Effects will depend on the differences of acceleration of different parts of the cluster. Because the speed has probably increased over many millenia, and because it is still a cluster, they were most likely very hard to observe.

### Re:Velocity (5, Interesting)

#### skastrik (971221) | about 8 months ago | (#46900243)

Frederik Pohl's The World at the End of Time [wikipedia.org] deals with the ejections of solar systems on a grand scale.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### dpilot (134227) | about 8 months ago | (#46900851)

That wasn't so much ejection as packing bags and leaving. (Not really a spoiler, this was revealed early in the book.)

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### kasperd (592156) | about 8 months ago | (#46900577)

I wonder if the Earth was in orbit around a star that was part of such a cluster, would we notice the effects of such an ejection?

On a related note, I have been wondering if a civilization, that manages to populate an entire galaxy could use such ejections to spread to other galaxies.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900635)

Ian M. Banks "Against A Dark Background" takes place in a star system that was ejected from it's galaxy however that detail is hardly significant to the plot at hand and is mentioned rather far into the book as a title drop.

### Re:Velocity (2)

#### meta-monkey (321000) | about 8 months ago | (#46900719)

IANAA, but I would not be shocked to learn that being anywhere close enough to a black hole to cause this galactic ejection would mean sterilization via gamma radiation from the other matter being ripped apart and then colliding with other matter in the accretion disk. There are so many high-energy events going on near a black hole that irradiation seems very likely to me.

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### Pallas Athena (2855215) | about 8 months ago | (#46900829)

I think that if we were in such a cluster (thousands of stars within a few dozen lightyears) the night sky would be spectacular. Of course, our instruments would measure that the fainter stars far away, the ones of our 'old' galaxy, would move, but I think that 99% of the population wouldn't notice any difference. As to interstellar travel, with such a huge number of stars that close by, I guess we would have enough interesting destinations for quite a while.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46901443)

to get slingshooted that fast it should have passed pretty near those supermassive black hole, so probably anything alive on those star systems has been scoured clean by accretion disks irradiation.

### Re:Velocity (4, Funny)

So that would be 48.5 megaSmoot/semester, based on the conventional 39 hour semester

### Re:Velocity (1)

#### fintux (798480) | about 8 months ago | (#46899437)

Two million miles per hour is less than 0.003c, but still quite a clip, even in astronomical terms.

Well it is approximately 0.00298c, so taking into account that the speed reading only has one significant digit, the speed of the star cluster might very well be above 0.003c.

### Re:Velocity (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46901827)

The relevant velocity is relative to its home galaxy, so it's not 2Mmph at all, but closer to 5Mmph. Better units include 0.77% c, 1.3AU/day, 2.4pc/kyr or 14 billion furlongs per fortnight.

### 12 Parsecs (1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898539)

This is at least 12 parsecs.

### Re:12 Parsecs (1)

#### ChrisSlicks (2727947) | about 8 months ago | (#46899105)

Parsec is a unit of distance (like light-years), without an expression over time it is not defining any speed.

### Re:12 Parsecs (4, Informative)

#### stjobe (78285) | about 8 months ago | (#46899611)

Whoosh.

That was the sound of the Millenium Falcon - the only ship to ever do the Kessel Run in under 12 Parsecs - passing over your head.

### Re:12 Parsecs (1)

#### ChrisSlicks (2727947) | about 8 months ago | (#46900163)

I know it's from the movie, but in the movie he is referring to the optimized distance travelling through the Maw Cluster and not time directly. [wikia.com]

### Re:12 Parsecs (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900991)

That's just the explanation fans gave to cover up the fact that Lucas is a complete idiot that didn't know what he was writing.

#### bazmail (764941) | about 8 months ago | (#46898543)

If Star Cluster was a rap posse and Galaxy was a club.

#### slashmydots (2189826) | about 8 months ago | (#46898655)

I was thinking the star cluster was a bachelorette party :-P

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898757)

In that case, the speed is even more impressive!

### If it's not too much to ask (5, Funny)

#### Arancaytar (966377) | about 8 months ago | (#46898553)

How much is this in libraries of congress per fortnight?

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (5, Funny)

#### stewsters (1406737) | about 8 months ago | (#46898619)

Remember that 1 lightyear = 1.03461597 × 1014 American football fields.

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (2)

#### stewsters (1406737) | about 8 months ago | (#46898633)

The superscript didn't work. edit: 10 ^ 14

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (2)

#### K. S. Kyosuke (729550) | about 8 months ago | (#46898647)

Hey, I'm European. We don't have those imperial units here. How much Romes per day is one Library of Congress per fortnight?

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (2)

#### man-element (3527915) | about 8 months ago | (#46898789)

Hey, I'm European. We don't have those imperial units here. How much Romes per day is one Library of Congress per fortnight?

Roughly 8 million olympic size swimming pools per menstrual cycle.

### Eew! (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898957)

That's a lot of blood.

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898997)

Wait, you know my wife?

### Re:If it's not too much to ask (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899589)

How deep is an olympic size swimming pool? FINA just specifies a minimum and a recommended depth.

### They didn't pay the rent? (4, Interesting)

#### tekrat (242117) | about 8 months ago | (#46898567)

A cluster of stars were "thrown out" of galaxy M87?... what, they didn't pay the rent? Or is M87 expressing a case of "tough love"?

The real question is; by what force were they ejected from the galaxy? The fastest we've ever been about to propel something is 24,000 mph -- and that's with a lot of gravity assists.... if we could figure out how to get a spacecraft to 2 million mph, trips around our solar system would go a lot faster.....

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (3, Funny)

#### jfdavis668 (1414919) | about 8 months ago | (#46898629)

It was an old, run down section of the galaxy.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (5, Funny)

#### CanHasDIY (1672858) | about 8 months ago | (#46898815)

It was an old, run down section of the galaxy.

So, what are you trying to say? That black holes only live in the galactic ghetto?

Racist.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900809)

It's African-American holes, you insensitive clod!

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### tyme (6621) | about 8 months ago | (#46900109)

The cluster was wearing Google Glass.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898799)

if we could figure out how to get a spacecraft to 2 million mph, trips around our solar system would go a lot faster.....

I imagine that it helps to have a reasonably sized black hole around.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### methano (519830) | about 8 months ago | (#46898811)

Unfortunately, all the passengers would be smushed to a 1 mm thick puddle in the back of the capsule. That is if we got them to that speed in a lifetime. Or maybe not. I need to go do some more math.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (4, Informative)

#### CreatureComfort (741652) | about 8 months ago | (#46899071)

Nah, at a constant 1 G acceleration you could get to 2 M mph in under 51 hours.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### kasperd (592156) | about 8 months ago | (#46900717)

Even the speed of light does not seem so fast when compared to 1G. c / 1G = 354 days. The implication of that is that at 1G acceleration, you'd reach relativistic speed in less than one year.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### Nemyst (1383049) | about 8 months ago | (#46901927)

Only if you assume that Newtonian mechanics apply, which they won't. When estimating acceleration for something like 0.003c, you can disregard relativistic effects, but not when you get anywhere near c. At that point, the velocity needs to be computed through general relativity, which is fiendishly more complicated than just v/a.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### jez9999 (618189) | about 8 months ago | (#46898989)

The fastest we've ever been about to propel something is 24,000 mph

Actually, Wikipedia says Voyager 1 is travelling at 38,350 mph.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900571)

It doesn't matter, because the fastest we've been able to propel something is at LEAST 147,600 mph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### Payden K. Pringle (3483599) | about 8 months ago | (#46899061)

One problem with that is that whatever system we used would have to have two ends. One to get us up to 2 million MPH and another to stop us.

i.e. since the summary mentions two supermassive black holes probably having something to do with getting to that speed, we'd probably need something similar or equivalent to slow down within a reasonable timeframe from that speed.

Doing something like that within our solar system would be somewhat difficult I think. Even if we could somehow compact that much power into something we could build near Earth, we'd need an equivalent one wherever we are going in the solar system.

It's like Mass Effect. You can only go to places using the Mass Relay beacons that also have Mass Relay beacons. You need breaks as much as, if not more than, gas.

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899225)

One thing I would like to point out. Was that your breaks don't need to be as big as your gas for interplanetary travel and beyond. 1. You'll burn off fuel which will lower your mass even while breaking. 2. You could use a staged design which would allow an even lower mass for breaking. 3. You could dump waste including used food storage and living space(assuming one-way ticket.)

I would like to thank KSP....

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46901219)

I would like to point out that in the context of a scientific discussion, you two intelligent people are completely dumbfounded by the words brake/break...

The correct word BRAKE should have been used, but you both chose to use the incorrect word BREAK...

A vehicle has an emergency BRAKE... A person can take a coffee BREAK...Can you please see the difference? The words are synonyms...I would expect the average slashdotter to knwo the difference...

Unless of couse when Payden said: "You need breaks as much as, if not more than, gas" he meant that need rest breaks or coffee breaks as much, if not more than, gas...

### Re:They didn't pay the rent? (1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899267)

They're being vague because they are scientists and they don't know precisely how it happened. Basically, a scientist took a picture of something very far away and hypothesized what was in the picture based on other pictures and theories. As far as what force was involved... If the picture is right, if the hypothesis of what's in the picture is accurate, then a scientist might hypothesize that the accelerating force was gravity, and try to construct a model of that galaxy to fit that hypothesis or alter an existing model developed by others. If the scientist is correct than his model or his alteration of the existing model will be shown to fit with future goings on in or around that galaxy as observed by out photographs.

### What's that in forlongs to the nidhogg? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898597)

Time to leave the 1800s behind.

### Slingshot effect (3, Funny)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898599)

"The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed."

... and then the star cluster went back in time and saved the whales from extinction.

### Can anyone explain... (2)

#### mark-t (151149) | about 8 months ago | (#46898637)

... if two spaceships counterclockwise in a circular path such that they are always on opposite side of the circle at relativistic speeds, looking out of the window at the other spaceship, because it appears to be travelling in the opposite direction, its speed is going to appear to be $\sqrt{2*v^2}/c$, and its clock should appear to be going more slowly than your own, right? So if both spaceships perceive that the other's clock is moving more slowly, what will they perceive if the spaceships come together to compare clocks? Will the clock on the other ship suddenly appear to be going faster than normal?

### Re:Can anyone explain... (3, Interesting)

#### wonkey_monkey (2592601) | about 8 months ago | (#46898723)

You say it "appears to be travelling in the opposite direction," but does it? It never gets any closer or any further away. Both ships are travelling around a common center, but relative to each other, are they in fact (as far as time dilation is concerned) stationary?

So if both spaceships perceive that the other's clock is moving more slowly, what will they perceive if the spaceships come together to compare clocks?

You can simplify (or in the light my above thought, perhaps even "make valid") this particular question a bit by considering the twin paradox instead. The same thing happens - the twin who stays at home considers the travelling twin's clock to be slower, but so does the traveller. And it's the same on the home trip, too, even though the traveller is now moving towards the stay-at-home. What breaks the symettry of the situation is that only one of them undergoes acceleration at the start, turnaround, and end points.

If the traveller had stayed at Alpha Centauri and his lazy twin had ventured out to follow him at the same speed, their clocks would match.

I suspect that the same applies to the circling ships - the clocks will match if neither breaks symmetry, otherwise they won't. And if the symmetry break is done only at non-relativistic speeds - i.e., both twins slow to a stop, then one tootles over to the other at 10km/h - the clocks will practically match.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### wonkey_monkey (2592601) | about 8 months ago | (#46898731)

What breaks my spelling of the word "symmetry" is another matter entirely.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### Sockatume (732728) | about 8 months ago | (#46899171)

That point bears emphasising: in relativity, an accelerating object is distinct from the rest of the universe.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### wonkey_monkey (2592601) | about 8 months ago | (#46899303)

It's Friday and I've had a long day. Why you gotta go putting conceptual bombs like that in my brain?

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### Sockatume (732728) | about 8 months ago | (#46899719)

Don't worry, general relativity makes the laws of the universe equivalent for all reference frames again. Of course, then you're dealing with general relativity.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### meta-monkey (321000) | about 8 months ago | (#46900759)

But those spaceships would be under constant acceleration. Their velocity is changing direction as they travel around the black hole.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (1)

#### wonkey_monkey (2592601) | about 8 months ago | (#46901215)

I don't remember anyone mentioning a black hole! In any case, they're both accelerating in an exactly opposite and symmetrical manner. There'd be no way to determine which of the two spaceships you were on if you were randomly teleported onto one of them (unless you had details of their positions at a particular time, so let's pretend you don't, or there are no useful navigational markers) so there can be no difference in their clocks if they meet up in a symmetrical way (and no practical difference if they stop and make non-symmetrical manoeuvres to rendezvous at non-relativistic speeds).

At least I think so. I'm not an astro- or any other kind of physicist.

### Re:Can anyone explain... (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898803)

What are you looking out the window at? Old photons?

### Re:Can anyone explain... (4, Informative)

#### bjorniac (836863) | about 8 months ago | (#46898951)

Well, there are a few things that would have to happen for them to compare clocks, and a key thing you're overlooking in your analysis:

1) For circular motion, the two ships would not have constant velocity in their _own_ reference frames - they're both accelerating towards the center (I'm assuming a flat space-time here for simplicity, but in GR things don't change much). Acceleration causes time dilation too!

2) For the ships to come together, they would have to maneouver. This will require further accelerations. Its during these that the other ship's clock will always appear to be moving faster.

What you've really got here is a reworking of the classical twin paradox - if one twin goes to Alpha Centauri (AC) and back, and the other stays on Earth, from _each_ perspective, the other one moves away then comes back. Yet the one who went to AC and back comes back younger - why? Well, what you're missing is that _at_ AC you have to slow down and then accelerate back towards Earth. This is the missing segment of the space-time picture, as the surfaces of simultaneity change during this acceleration.

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

### Any sign of Pierson Pupeteers? (1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898659)

What is the configuration of the star cluster?

### 2 million miles an hour ? (2)

#### aepervius (535155) | about 8 months ago | (#46898689)

Why not just use per second (I won't even harp on using 900 km.s-1 at that point it seems neigh useless) and compare to speed of light (that's about 0.3% of speed of light by the way) or other astronomical measurement.

Don't come back!

### "Towards" at negative velocity? (1)

#### wonkey_monkey (2592601) | about 8 months ago | (#46898801)

A Globular Cluster Toward M87 with a Radial Velocity

Why don't they say "away from" at "(+)1000 km/s"? (if I've got that right; the somewhat hilarious "artist's impression" indicates, as does the headline, that the cluster is moving away from M87).

What's the significance of the negative velocity?

### Incredible! (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898929)

Wow, that's about 30 times the speed that the Earth travels around the sun!

### Re:Incredible! (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900557)

And would take 1400 years to travel from here to the nearest star

### Another Question (4, Interesting)

#### Mapleperson (1316213) | about 8 months ago | (#46898947)

Another questions is what happens to the speeding cluster if is was flung out by a bigger galaxy. One would assume the the dark matter that originally present in the cluster would not take the same track. Without the supporting dark matter the radial velocities are too great for the outer stars of the cluster to continue orbiting the system. One would think that there should be trail of stars left behind. Could be a great way to investigate dark matter interaction with galaxies.

### Marrow (1)

#### MrKaos (858439) | about 8 months ago | (#46898953)

Come to think of it, this would be a great way to travel between galaxies. This would be an excellent Intergalactic Spacecraft!

### Re:Marrow (1)

#### laejoh (648921) | about 8 months ago | (#46899685)

Let's call it an Intergalactic Bypass. Let's put a little sign next to it, saying "Don't Panic, next stop...the restaurant at the end of the universe."

### Re:Marrow (1)

#### meta-monkey (321000) | about 8 months ago | (#46900815)

Not really. 2 million MPH is only like .003c, and the nearest galaxy to us is Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away. You'd still be looking at a good 833 million years to get there.

Interstellar distances are huge. Intergalactic distances are brain-destroyingly huge.

### Towards Us (5, Informative)

#### Infiniti2000 (1720222) | about 8 months ago | (#46898977)

The Virgo Cluster galaxy, M87, has ejected an entire star cluster, throwing it toward us at more than two million miles per hour.

I can imagine people getting alarmed at this, but they shouldn't. If it's truly directly towards us (unlikely), and never veers off course (unlikely), it would still take about 18.3 million years to reach us.

### Re:Towards Us (1)

#### sinij (911942) | about 8 months ago | (#46899323)

This might be how advanced civilizations do space travel.

Oblig: I for one, welcome our new cluster-slinging galactic-traveling overlords!

### Re:Towards Us (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900499)

Minor correction .. that should be about 18 billion years. So warm jackets and mittens will be mandatory between the time the sun turns into a lump of coal and the arrival of the star cluster ...

For the interested: Assuming Google, the source of all knowledge in the universe, is correct, the distance from M27 to earth is 5.349x10^7 light years from here or 31.4 x 10^19 miles. The cluster is moving at 2x10^6 mph or1.75 x 10^10 mpy.

### Re:Towards Us (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900523)

Correction to the correction ... that is M87 not M27

### Wan-Tu has been Busy - World at the End of Time (1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46898981)

Frederick Phol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time

An Interstellar Being that lives in the heart of a star "Flings" a cluster of Stars out of his Galaxy and far into the Future due to Time Dilation. On one planets that orbits one of the Stars lives a new colony of humans, cut off from Earth they come to understand something is wrong with their new home and the Universe recedes far into the past. Meanwhile one of the original colonists proceeds to "Time travel" himself due to cryonics still aboard the original Colonist spacecraft.

Eons in the Future Wan-tu is the last survivor in a Universe beyond the Stelleferous Age, when all the Stars in the Universe have died and only the cold dark husks of their former bodies remain. He receives a Tachyon burst from the mechanical care takers he left to tend the original star cluster far from the extreme Edge of the Universe.. the Stars he flippantlly tossed away are still Young and Burning bright.. and he launches himself towards them..

The Mechanical care takers have given up on their Maker and have "discovered" humanity barely clinging to life on its new colony world.

Very 2001 like, or perhaps more a stage is set between a Capricious god-"Like" being and its mechanical creation, and the mechanical creations new found fascination with these beings called "the colonists"... and ever present the man from yesterday. Where will it all lead?

### They know something (2)

#### utoddl (263055) | about 8 months ago | (#46898995)

Sounds like M87's Puppeteers know something and are heading for higher ground.

### You fail 1t... (-1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899041)

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### Hard to imagine cluster holding together... (3, Interesting)

#### Thagg (9904) | about 8 months ago | (#46899051)

For a three-body slingshot to work, the object would have to get pretty close to one or both of the black holes -- considerably closer than the size of a globular cluster. At that distance, the tidal forces around the black holes would rip the cluster apart. I just can't see this happening.

I suppose it's time to do some simulations :)

### Pedantic rant (1, Flamebait)

#### gauntlet420 (646001) | about 8 months ago | (#46899143)

a globular cluster of several thousand stars (compressed into a space just a few dozen light-years apart) is being thrown out of galaxy M87.

I always have issues with astronomical articles that say something *is* happening, especially when the observation is of a structure 53.4 million light years away. *Was* happening, sure. *Is* happening? Don't think so...

### Re: Pedantic rant (1)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899361)

I always have an issue with pedantic neck beards that don't understand that from our pov, it is happening.

### How else are the Puppeteers going to escape? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899701)

They tend to think for the long term. Using the black holes was brilliant!

### Galaxies create Galaxies? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46899751)

So, is this the possibly one way new Galaxies are formed?

### In other words (2)

#### Tablizer (95088) | about 8 months ago | (#46899777)

it got cluster fscked

### The Cluster replies, (3, Funny)

#### PPH (736903) | about 8 months ago | (#46899789)

"I've been thrown out of classier places than this!"

### Galactic Bullying. (1)

#### geekmux (1040042) | about 8 months ago | (#46900241)

"...The star cluster wandered too close to the pair...

"...The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed."

For some reason I'm picturing two bullies who just caught the new freshman kid walking home from school...

#### Anonymous Coward | about 8 months ago | (#46900431)

HVGC stands for High Velocity Galactic Collision! I'm NOT looking it up, in hopes that it does!

Just trying to imagine the chaos going on there, and the mass and velocities involved is well, unreal. Now IS the time to be in Physics and Astonomy!

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