Alien Invaders R Us!

[swestrup]

Its long been a puzzle why the visible band of stars known as the Milky Way Galaxy is at an angle in the night sky. If we were undisturbed members of this galaxy, then we should be oriented so that the plane of the solar system and the plane of the galaxy were aligned. Obviously, some other celestial influence is responsible for being us tilted, but which?

Well it appears that the answer is surprising. We're not members of the Milky Way at all! Our entire solar system is part of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, which is currently being eaten by the Milky Way!

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Thus proving that Sagittarians rule.

(The previous message was entirely tongue-in-cheek, as its bearer thinks about as much of astrology as she does of George W. Bush.)

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

The discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf is certainly very interesting, but I'm going to want to read about it in some more respectable venue.

The page you link to (on what is clearly pseudo-science site) is full of unscientific gobbledygood of a highly questionable nature.

The fact that the Milky Way is seen in the sky at an angle has always puzzled astronomers.

It has? First I've heard of it, but then I'm not an astronomer. I'll have to look into that claim.

If we originated from the Milky Way, we ought to be oriented to the galaxy's ecliptic, with the planets aligned around our Sun in much the same angle as our Sun aligns with the Milky Way.

Er, really? I've always understood that a planetary system's orientation in space was completely independent of the Milky Way's orientation, depending entirely on local conditions during its formation. But again, I'll need to look into it.

Instead, as first suggested by researcher Matthew Perkins Erwin,

...who, if you follow the link provided, is clearly a wing-nut. Note that this "researcher" Erwin doesn't appear to be associated with any institution. Oh wait, from the bottom of the page I gather that the viewzone.com page is also the work of Erwin, who seems to be citing himself as a source. Hmmmm.

We of the overarching Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy have finally come down next to, and even with the massively powerful spiral armed equatorial plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. In our movement through space, our Earth has now fully begun to respond to the more powerful galactic energies and electro-gravitational bias of the massive Milky Way.

This is just complete BS. "Electro-gravitational bias" -- WTF?

Ah, then he goes on to explain how global warming isn't due to CO2 increase but is the result of our solar system's recent parallel-parking with the Milky Way. Uh huh.

And finally:

Readers may also be interested to read about Doomsday: The Mayan Prophecy

They might. Or maybe not.

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

Found the following in the Bad Astronomy forums:

"No. I've never heard that the arrangment of bodies about a star, condensed from an accretion disk, has any correlation to the structure of the parent galaxy."

From the same page:

"...should we expect the planes of binary pairs to correlate to the galactic plane?

"Abstract: Orientation of the Orbital Planes of Visual Binary Systems
"Quote:
"The space distribution of orbital poles for 252 visual binaries is analyzed to check a possible tendency towards parallelism. It is confirmed that orbital planes do not show any trend to be parallel to the Galactic plane. No strong evidence is found for a preferential orientation of the orbital planes for subgroups of binaries with similar periods and eccentricities."

[swestrup]

Yeah, I guess I should have checked the references better on that one! I'm glad folks are keeping me honest here!

[sps.livejournal.com]

Well, that certainly explains why I've always felt like an alien visitor.