ASOW 2012/06/24: Galaxies in Collision

[owlice]

Galaxies in Collision
Presenter: Dr. Rob Knop
Professor of Physics, Quest University, Canada

Audio (MP3, 70Mb)

Stars within a galaxy like our own almost never collide with each other. Galaxies themselves, however, run into each other all the time. What's more, when the Universe was younger and smaller, they ran into each other more often. In this talk, Dr. Knop gives an overview of the sorts of things we see observationally when galaxies run into each other, causing not only the beautiful cosmic collisions that we've seen images of, but also triggering huge bursts of star formation and even tremendous activity at the nucleus of those galaxies.
First presented in Second Life in October, 2008.

Dr. Knop will answer a selection of questions posted by July 8, 2012.

A PDF of the slides can be downloaded here. (4Mb)

Files also available here: http://www.mica-vw.org/wiki/index.php/G ... _Collision

[Paul, NZ1M]

Frame 12: comparing distance between galaxies and distance between starts in a galaxy, I ask: are there random stars between galaxies?

[owlice]

Yes, there are stars that are not in galaxies; this APOD discusses them, and here's a research paper on them.

[deserto]

that's an amazing info

[objetivonocturno]

Amazing!! many thanks

[Seeker]

Do super massive black holes ever combine to form a singular black hole?

[Chris Peterson]

Do super massive black holes ever combine to form a singular black hole?

Yes.