The Bubba Gump Galaxy Co. (Show #41)

By Aaron on January 24, 2006 at 11:17 pm | In Slacker Astronomy Archival Podcasts |

Castdate: 060123
Title: The Bubba Gump Galaxy Co.
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Pamela Gay & Travis “Don Ho” Searle
Engineered: Travis
Rating: [FF]

• Transcript
• Press release spaceref.com
• Slashdot discussion
• The paper (preprint)
• Green Acres

From the press release:

“The map shows the view from far away above the galactic plane.

According to the standard Milky Way models, the top and bottom halves should be symmetric with respect to the horizontal line in the middle.

The discovery of the large overdensity of stars… breaks the expected symmetry and is at odds with the standard models.

The dashed line shows the position of the plane containing debris from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that is being cannibalized by the Milky Way. While its proximity to the new structure suggests that perhaps the two may be related, the known Sagittarius debris is located about four times further away.”

Green Stars (with apologies to Green Acres):

Antartica is the place for me. I get sunburned in the sea. I just adore the aurorae view. Keep the tropics and send me to the frozen blue.
Puerto Rico is where I’d rather stay. Beach volleyball I like to play. Polka dot bikini’s so far and wide. Keep your penguins and send me a mai tai.
The snow men!
Sand castles!
Frosbite!
Mosquito Bites!
You are an astronomer…
I’ll go where the NSF sends me!
Grant committees, we are yours!