Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Astronomers observe the Radcliffe Wave oscillating (phys.org)
53 points by wglb 12 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments



If you're wondering what the Radcliffe Wave is like I was, from the article:

> A few years ago, astronomers uncovered one of the Milky Way's greatest secrets: An enormous, wave-shaped chain of gaseous clouds in our sun's backyard, giving birth to clusters of stars along the spiral arm of the galaxy we call home.

Tldr: the clouds both look like a wave and move like waves too (analogized to wave-like motions in stadiums). Which is pretty neat. They speculate it's because of gravitational interactions.

More: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07127-3


What they discovered is a traveling wave (like in stadiums) - the stars move "up and down" in relation to the "Milky Way gravity". They have no idea why it is happening.


Isn't the idea that it's due to the Milky Way gravity?


Idle wonder if while dark matter is not necessary as said ITT,

visible matter moving interacting with specific dark matter gravitational sources, in effect static wrt the galactic rotation of the visible, would explain the "origin" sought.

I.e., don't need oscillation to continue, but it's a premise for how it got started.


The "Soliton Wave" from TNG was very far down on the list of things I would have expected to see in real life.


Trai kíune


Clearly the Radcliffe wave is leftover vibrational energy from a space-time knot formed when now long extinct aliens exited the galaxy in a dark energy fueled artificially generated wormhole. Clearly.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: