# Galactic Core **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 19, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947 "2005-10-19T17:33:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/21 "2005-10-21T01:38:54Z")
> [@Angua](#): > > However, if you look at Andromeda, with an amateur telescope, i.e. one that you simply look through, where all the optics do is magnify rather than anything really fancy… Actually, the main things telescopes do is not magnify (especially when looking at Messier objects), but provide a large area for collecting light. Andromeda is several times larger than the full Moon - magnification is not even necessary, but you need a bigger area to collect photons than the 7 mm or so that your pupil has by itself. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that being closer to Andromeda would help to make it brighter, as in density of the brightness. I know overall it would be brighter because it would appear larger, but the density should be the same. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/22 "2005-10-21T07:17:39Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Actually, the main things telescopes do is not magnify (especially when looking at Messier objects), but provide a large area for collecting light. :smack: I _knew_ that. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/23 "2005-10-21T08:30:11Z")
> [@Angua](#): > > :smack: I _knew_ that. :: points and laughs at **Angua** :: Don’t mind me, I’ve just been gobsmacked to learn that the Andromeda galaxy has an apparent size larger than the full Moon. But it’s obvious why we don’t see it; we barely see the individual stars of the Milky Way, and they’re _way_ closer. > [@Angua](#): > > Of course, there is the argument that any major merger event (such as us colliding with Andromeda) will set the central black hole into active mode, in which case, I think the core would become very bright, very quickly, especially in the optical, and maybe also in the radio wavebands. I wonder how that’d affect us. There’d be an interstellar stock market crash when the cowardly two-headed aliens who are the only ones who know how to make invulnerable spaceship hulls fled the galaxy at STL speed, even though the light from the explosion was thirty thousand years away. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/24 "2005-10-21T08:34:23Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > :: points and laughs at **Angua** :: ::Glares with intent:: > [@](#): > > Don’t mind me, I’ve just been gobsmacked to learn that the Andromeda galaxy has an apparent size larger than the full Moon. But it’s obvious why we don’t see it; we barely see the individual stars of the Milky Way, and they’re _way_ closer. Yeah. You’d think I’d remember that. And it would seem that my optical astronomy colleagues were either flat out lying, or deluding themselves. Whilst it might be possible, with a good amateur telescope, to see something more than a dirty smudge of light, you’ll be hard pressed to make out arms. I apologise for my misinformation. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/25 "2005-10-21T16:41:41Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > There’d be an interstellar stock market crash when the cowardly two-headed aliens who are the only ones who know how to make invulnerable spaceship hulls fled the galaxy at STL speed, even though the light from the explosion was thirty thousand years away. 😉 [What core explosion?](http://www.larryniven.org/stories/downinflames.htm) ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/26 "2005-10-21T18:56:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What would cause [the converging Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies] to kaboom? They could collide, of course, but that’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about? You’re thinking on **way** too short a time scale here. When galaxies collide, they basically scatter both their contents through intergalactic space. This includes all those nice dust clouds and regions of new star formation – they’d get so dispersed that practically **no new stars would form** out of the contents of the two galaxies for the rest of eternity. No new stars. That means no new planets, no new life forms, no new anything. When our sun burns out, there won’t be a younger sun for us to migrate our civilization to, because no new suns would have formed. And even if they **had** , our sun would have been flung so far away from the rest of the stars in the former Milky Way that interstellar travel would be nigh-on impossible. Your “nothing to worry about” galactic collision is going to spell the end of civilization! ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/27 "2005-10-21T21:18:01Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > No new stars. That means no new planets, no new life forms, no new anything. When our sun burns out, there won’t be a younger sun for us to migrate our civilization to, because no new suns would have formed. And even if they **had** , our sun would have been flung so far away from the rest of the stars in the former Milky Way that interstellar travel would be nigh-on impossible. > > Your “nothing to worry about” galactic collision is going to spell the end of civilization! Well, it would definitely be a life lived Against A Dark Background. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/28 "2005-10-21T21:32:23Z")
> [@Angua](#): > > And it would seem that my optical astronomy colleagues were either flat out lying, or deluding themselves. Whilst it might be possible, with a good amateur telescope, to see something more than a dirty smudge of light, you’ll be hard pressed to make out arms. I apologise for my misinformation. Perhaps with naked eye viewing. However, with some good photography skills, you can take a picture that will clearly show its structure with a relatively modest scope (I mean, I’m not talking about a 2-inch junk scope or anything.) You can see more with the camera than with the eye, at least in some respects. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/29 "2005-10-21T23:51:23Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > :: points and laughs at **Angua** :: > > Don’t mind me, I’ve just been gobsmacked to learn that the Andromeda galaxy has an apparent size larger than the full Moon. Me too… ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/30 "2005-10-23T18:04:39Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > At the Solar System’s present point in its 300,000,000-year orbit through the Galaxy, our view of the galactic core is obscured by dust clouds. I’m wondering if there are any good speculations as to what the Core would look like to us (normal naked-eye vision) if those clouds were not present or if we were at some point in the galactic orbit where they didn’t obscure it. Today’s [Astronomy Picture of the Day](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051023.html), a view of the galactic core in near-IR, might interest you … ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947/31 "2005-10-23T19:28:12Z")
I didn’t read every post, so if this has been addressed I apologize. [We have a Bar at the center](http://www.news.wisc.edu/11405.html) > [@](#): > > The Milky Way, it turns out, is no ordinary spiral galaxy. According to a massive new survey of stars at the heart of the galaxy by Wisconsin astronomers, including professor of astonomy Edward Churchwell and professor of physics Robert Benjamin, the Milky Way has a definitive bar feature – some 27,000 light years in length – that distinguishes it from pedestrian spiral galaxies, as shown in this artist’s rendering. The survey, conducted using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, sampled light from an estimated 30 million stars in the plane of the galaxy in an effort to build a detailed portrait of the inner regions of the Milky Way. Illustration courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galactic-core/326947.md?page=1)