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In a study published March 9 [PDF] in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers announced the discovery that all disk galaxies rotate about once every billion years, no matter their size or mass.
“It’s not Swiss watch precision,” said Gerhardt Meurer, an astronomer from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), in a press release. “But regardless of whether a galaxy is very big or very small, if you could sit on the extreme edge of its disk as it spins, it would take you about a billion years to go all the way round.”
To carry out the study, the researchers measured the radial velocities of neutral hydrogen in the outer disks of a plethora of galaxies — ranging from small dwarf irregulars to massive spirals. These galaxies differed in both size and rotational velocity by up to a factor of 30. With these radial velocity measurements, the researchers were able to calculate the rotational period of their sample galaxies, which led them to conclude that the outer rims of all disk galaxies take roughly a billion years to complete one rotation. However, the researchers note that further research is required to confirm the clock-like spin rate is a universal trait of disk galaxies and not just a result of selection bias.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/03/14/galaxies-rotate-billion-years/
[Source]: Astronomy.Com
[Also Covered By]: ZME Science
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 15 2018, @06:43PM
Well over three quarters of the population agrees that drive shafts and transmissions are a kind of black hole they'd rather not try to figure out. "By some miracle, that shit works, just tell me when it's time for maintenance"
My question would be how you managed to lose the oil cap for a supermassive black hole.