Our Galaxy Is In Collision

Something astounding is going on in space and it has only recently been discovered by astronomers. It seems that a dwarf galaxy, called Sagittarius, is running right into our own Milky Way.

One would think that a galaxy of swirling suns and planets that collides with another would bring chaos. A good science fiction writer could portray the effect as suns and planets in collision, all of the energies of the two systems destroying one another in violent explosive fury.

Strangely, that is not happening. The dwarf galaxy seems to be mixing with and passing through the massive Milky Way without incident. The process has been going on for a very long time and is expected to take about a million years to complete.

Astronomers who study such matters say the Sagittarius Dwarf is one of nine small dwarf spheroidal galaxies that orbit our galaxy. Since all galaxies seem to orbit, the dwarf galaxies appear to be in orbit around the Milky Way. And the Sagittarius Dwarf has such an odd orbital path that some scientists believe it has passed through the Milky Way many times before.

How can this happen without bringing destruction to the order of our corner of the universe? That is the mystery.

Some scientists theorize that the Sagittarius contains a lot of low-density dark matter that not only allows the clusters of whirling stars to pass one another without being torn apart by the gravitational pull of one another.

The theory is supported by the discovery that our planet is being bombarded by millions of sub-atomic particles that appear to be passing right through our three-dimensional planet without ill effects.

These particles, called WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles), are mostly striking from one direction.

The discovery in 1994 that the Sagittarius dwarf is entering our galaxy has helped to explain the WIMPS. It is believed that the Sagittarius is orbiting over the poles of our own galaxy.

"Part of this stream of stars is coming past our part of the galaxy, close to the Solar System," said Heidi Newberg, astronomer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Newberg and Katherine Freeze, of the University of Michigan, published a paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, in which they theorize that the Earth is passing through the midst of a sea of fast-moving dark matter coming directly from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. They say billions of WIMPS could be passing through every square mile of the Earth and our bodies at speeds of over a million kilometers per hour.

The invading galaxy, which is a fraction the size of our own, was discovered by a team of UK astrologers in 1994 while they were analyzing stars in a concentrated, elliptical bulge at the center of the Milky Way.

They said they discovered that certain stars were not moving in the right manner to be in the center of the Milky Way. Instead, they were found to be part of a dwarf galaxy located along the line of sight to the center of our galaxy, but on the opposite side.

Sagittarius was thus hidden from clear view even though it was on a collision course.