Nearby Planets:

The Search Goes On

Observations of the night sky in the late twentieth century brought a cornucopia of discovery. For in the search for class M worlds [though throughout this period, none were found] the knowledge gained of our solar system and the Milky Way itself were astounding.

Previous reports from this office have detailed the discoveries of other planets believed to be orbiting near by stars, as our advances in detection increase, confirmation of the existence of such objects will be possible.

Many stars, such as HR4796A [approximately 220 light years from earth] have been shown to possess planets. Observation has shown that this star has a ring of dust [similar in nature to those of the planet Saturn], which orbits around it at a distance of some 70 AU [or 6.5 ‘billion’ miles]. What makes this different is the slenderness of the ring itself; Considered by many to owe its existence in this form to rather large massive bodies, i.e., planets.

Another stellar object HD 141569, which also has a dust ring is noted for the dark band within, which is believed to be evidence of the formation of a planetary body. This gap is some 250 AU from the start itself, and is roughly the width of our solar system.

Yet, while these ‘objects’ are at a much greater distance from their parent star than is Earth, and therefore unlikely to support life, one of the greatest questions posed by their being there is their very existence at all. For none of the parent stars is more than 20 million years old, far too short a period for planets to exist at those distances [at least, in so far as our understanding of planetary formation allows].

Bodies of Darkness:

The Essence of Tiny Ghost Galaxies

paper by:

RAdm. RM Wey

COSR: SFS-SFC

There are objects in the night sky…Swirling masses of clumped together invisible matter, ‘ghost galaxies’, devoid of stars which may, themselves, outnumber the most luminous galaxies in our universe.

Since the seventh decade of the twentieth century, astronomers have accepted the belief that ninety-percent of our universe is invisible. That is to say, that what constitutes what we perceive as our universe is but a fraction of its whole. Observations of the ‘visible’ universe have brought forth discrepancies in orbital velocities, as well as gravitational anomalies, which the ‘visible’ universe cannot account for.

Other observations have shown that the movement of stellar objects within our own galaxy as well as others is too great to be attributed to the ‘visible’ universe alone, especially within the many gas-poor galaxies, which exist. Research into this apparent ‘anomaly’ has concluded that: The smaller the galaxy, the higher the likely that ‘dark matter’ exists within.

Although these ‘dwarf galaxies’ are little more than fuzz balls of gas and dust, they contain densities of ‘Dark Matter’ some one hundred times greater than the largest of the giant galaxies. Such ‘Dwarf Galaxies’ are known to be of greater number than larger galaxies, and it is only through the study of more and diverse galaxies that such findings have come to light.

What’s more, empirical evidence exists to show how such is possible. When the first of the truly massive stars within those galaxies died, some went the way of super novae. But because these galaxies possess so little mass, the explosions themselves drove the gas and raw materials of the star right out of the galaxy and into interstellar space. The dark matter, however, remained because it only reacts with gravity, something that these bodies lacked as well.

The dwarf galaxy recently discovered near our own Milky Way adds weight to the theory as well. Having maintained its shape despite the tug from our galaxy. The very interactions between them may explain the warp of the Milky Ways’ outer edge.

It is only if ‘Dark Matter’ is considered that the existence of such a small ‘galaxy’ remaining ‘intact’ through the many millennia could be possible.