Sagittarius DEG

Sagittarius DEG -- Dwarf Ellptical Galaxy -- is the correct designation of the small galaxy that is merging with the Milky Way, to distinguish it from Sagittarius DIG, Dwarf irregular Galaxy.

Astronomers have long suspected that the Milky Way Galaxy was formed from smaller galaxies. Moreover, after becoming a relatively large galaxy, it may have continued to acquire a substantial part of its mass by "devouring" smaller galactic companions that moved too close. Apparently confirming that hypothesis was the discovery of a new object in 1994 now commonly referred to as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG), found very close to the Milky Way on the opposite side of the Galactic Center from the Solar System (Ibata et al, 1995 and 1994). Not to be confused with the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy (SagDIG), SagDEG is the Milky Way's nearest known neighbor and comprised of mostly old, yellowish stars. Astrophysicist Rosemary Wyse of Johns Hopkins University has estimated that as much as 10 percent of the stars in the Milky Way's halo came from dwarf galaxies like SagDEG, merging with the Milky Way over the past eight billion years or so. (In November 2003, astronomers announced that an even closer galaxy (located 25,000 ly from Sol and 42,000 ly from the galactic center) called the Canis Major dwarf may be losing stars to the Milky Way's disk as well.)

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In 1996, a team of astronomers found a stream of stars that were apparently stripped from SagDEG by the Milky Way as a "tidal trail" (Mateo et al, 1996). Extending to the southwest, it can be traced out to 34 degrees from the center of Sagittarius. Although theoretical models predicted the symmetric presence of another stream, extending to the northwest, that could be so long as to completely encircle the Milky Way, this stream was more difficult to find because it would cross the disk of the Milky Way and so be obscured by the dense stars, gas, and dust of the Galactic Center.

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The article goes on to say that recent observations have confirmed the theory that the stream of the incoming stars of Sagittarius DEG actually do encircle the Milky Way.

In 2003, some astronomers modeling SagDEG's movements with a full-sky map of red (M) giant stars attributed to the galaxy that were detected through the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) speculated that it was once pulled through the Milky Way's disk very close to Sol's current location (Majewski et al, 2003; and Law et al, 2003).

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http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/sag-deg.htm

2012: What It Really Means

I just hate to admit it when I have been wrong, but here goes:

On several occasions, I have said that there is nothing special about 2012. I was wrong. The Mayan calendar makers did know something that we didn't know. Until quite recently, that is.

The year 2012 is when our solar system officially becomes, at least in the minds of those ancient calendar makers, officially a part of the Milky Way galaxy.

You see, scientists have found an explanation for why the Milky Way appears at an angle in the night sky. If we were part of the Milky Way Galaxy, then the dense band of stars that we call the Milky Way ought to appear as a horizontal band of bright stars stretching from east to west, cutting the night sky neatly in half. We should be orbiting the galactic center in the flattened disk where the stars are most densely packed -- we should be oriented to the galaxy's ecliptic. We are not. Instead our star, the Sun, wobbles up and down across the ecliptic in a cycle that lasts roughly 26,000 years.

This is because we are part of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, and not part of the Milky Way.

We can't see the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, but with infrared photography, we can see that the Milky Way is stretching out the tiny dwarf and eating it.





Source:

Scientists Now Know: We're Not From Here!

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Water found on the Moon

Water found on the Moon

Water Found on Moon, Scientists Say

The discovery came out of a mission a month ago in which a
satellite hit into a crater near the lunar south pole.

New York Times

why am I not surprised?

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Dangers of mercury in vaccines

Vaccination: Federal Health Agencies Continue to Deceive Americans
Congressional Report on a Vaccine Mercury-Autism Link Ignored for Six Years

by Richard Gale and Dr Gary Null

Manufacturers of vaccines and thimerosal have never conducted adequate testing on the safety of thimerosal. The FDA has never required manufacturers to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethylmercury compounds.”

For many decades, the FDA has known about the neurotoxic effects of thimersosal. A review of internal documents from Eli Lilly, the original inventor of ethylmercury in the 1920s, reveals that only one study has ever been performed to investigate thimerosal’s safety in humans and it was “woefully inadequate.” During the actual Committee hearings, Rep. Burton remarked, “You mean to tell me since 1929 we’ve been using thimerosal and the only test you know of is the one that was done in 1929, and every one of those people got meningitis and died?”[5]

Global Research

The EPA tells s not to eat a can of tuna fish because it contains mercury, but the FDA and the CDC tell us to let them inject mercury into us. They claim that it's perfectly safe!
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Climate Change - The Real Story

As a writer of science fiction, I have an intense interest in science, especially as it affects real people. One of the most alarming trends in science, in my opinion, is to panic over unproven theories of global disaster. Global warming presents a huge threat to humanity, not because the Earth is warming but because it is not warming. In fact, many prominent scientists state -- and have been stating since the 1950s -- that we are entering a global ice age.

While alarmists change their cry of global warming to global climate change, the real situation on the ground reveals that they do not know what they are talking about. The global warming alarmists predicated that average global temperatures would rise over the past ten years, but the temperatures have actually fallen.

And there's more.

As physicist David Douglass said, “If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing.”

Many people pointed to facts contradicting the “appealing” hypothesis but were ignored or marginalized for several reasons. These included; apparent support from rising global temperatures between 1980 and 1998; evidence too technical for most people; effective personal attacks on skeptics; Gore’s slick propaganda movie An Inconvenient Truth despite 35 scientific errors; and the mainstream media was ignorant of the science and biased.

IceCap

Go to the right hand column and scroll down about halfway for the story,
"Current Global Temperatures Impossible According to IPCC ‘Science’"
By Timothy Ball, Canada Free Press

Or use this link to the same article, for a page that loads much more slowly

Canada Free Press

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New Ocean Forming in Africa?

I just love this kind of science story, a little over the edge, but still making the mainstream news.

The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process — at a speed of less than 1 inch per year — for the past 30 million years. This rifting formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so. The new ocean would connect to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in eastern Africa.

Rift in Africa Likely to Create New Ocean

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Origins, Rare Collector's Item

If you have a copy of Origins, Part One: Thor's Hammer, it is now a rare collector's item.

The two paperback editions from Create Space have been discontinued because Publish America has bought the rights. They will make my novel available in hardcover and paperback, and they will list it in the catalogs that book store managers use. We have signed the contract, and they are paying me an advance of one dollar.

The signed copies of Origins are already going for about $100 on eBay, and the value will go up.

Only 60 copies of the first edition are in existence, and only 10 copies of the second edition are in existence. I have signed only 20 copies of the first edition, and I have not signed any copies of the second edition. I own 5 copies of the second edition, which I will be signing and either selling or giving away.

This is a step up for me, having a "real" publisher.

I want to thank all of you for your support and for reading my books!

Thank you so much!

~~ Tessa
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