Milky Way Galaxy

Milky Way Galaxy

Till now, we read about two beautiful galaxies, Andromeda and Whirlpool; now let’s know some interesting things about our home galaxy - Milky Way (MW).

One funny aspect is that the thing got named long before knowing what it was. As you may already know, during a dark night, mostly away from urban lights, a white band is seen across the sky. Earlier, till end of 19th century, even scientists used to think all that we see is universe and every things (stars/clusters) is contained within our structure, later to be proven otherwise.

That milky band is actually part of the disk of our galaxy, it is mostly obscured by dust. We can NOT see our own galaxy completely for obvious reasons, though we know that it is a “Barred Spiral Galaxy”.

Apart from being our home, there is nothing special about MW, in terms of size, it has about ‘just’ 100 to 400 billion stars (compared to about 1 Trillion in Andromeda) and a diameter of only of about 1,00,000 (1 Lakh) light years (ly) compared to about 2.2 ly of Andromeda. I have given a comparison picture to show where MW actually stands and how tiny we are in the whole scheme of things.

MW will be merging with Andromeda in about 4 billion years to form a much larger elliptical galaxy.

While most of our galaxy is invisible to us, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission for detected a beautiful, awe inspiring phenomenon. It discovered two extremely large Gamma ray emission bulges/bubbles ‘above’ and ‘below’ the galactic center. These are formed due the super-massive black hole at the MW center that is devouring nearby stars at a high rate; while mass is eaten by the black hole, some radiation escapes to form these structures.

A Barred Spiral Galaxy (NGC 1300)

Artist's impression of Milky Way

Barred Spiral Galaxy (UGC 12158) that looks similar to Milky Way

Gamma ray emission bulges/bubbles formed by super-massive black hole at the center of Milky Way

MW compared to larger and largest galaxies

Photo Credits (Wikipedia/Wikimedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster…

https://en.wikipedia.org/…/File:800_nasa_structure_renderin…

https://en.wikipedia.org/…/File:Artist%27s_impression_of_th…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UGC_12158.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_spiral_galaxy…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_262

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

Couple of weeks back we got an introduction of how a galaxy looks like, with an extremely high resolution image (most detailed so far), of our nearest neighbor Andromeda galaxy - M31 (link to post in comments)

Today, I will write about some awe inspiring facts and share links of one of the most magnificent galaxy, Whirlpool Galaxy (aka Messier 51 or just M51); the picture tells the reason behind the naming.

M51 is the First galaxy to be classified as a ‘Spiral Galaxy’, at a distance of about 25 million light years and with the axis or rotation directly pointing towards us, giving a  ‘full face view’, is a well known and studied astronomical object. M51 has a companion, a small galaxy named 51b and is gravitationally interacting with and will merge in future.

One can look at the picture(s) for hours and appreciate the beauty, the colours, spiral arms, ‘dust lanes’; it is hypnotic and after a while creates illusion of inward spiralling movement.

Now zoom into the image, you will see bright Red and Blue specks/dots/patches. Based on experience with the Andromeda post/picture, one would be tempted to appreciate these innumerable ‘apparent stars’, but no, Universe always has some surprise in its bag, and in this case, would you believe if I tell you that each of those specs is NOT a star, but it is a ‘Cluster of few LAKH stars’, yes you read that correctly.

Take a gasp and look at the picture again. I am sure you are looking at M51 much differently now :)

Links

1. Image Tour http://hubblesite.org/video/881/image_tours

Photos:

• M51 and M51b - Optical spectrum picture by Hubble Space Telescope

• M51 - Optical image with overlay of Hydrogen gas distribution (in blue)

• M51 in Infrared on the right, visible spectrum on Left.

The Infrared light passes through dust, visible light gets blocked. The dark spirals in the Left image are called dust lanes, those show up bright in the infrared as that dust is getting heated by the background light/radiation and emits (heat ) in infrared spectrum.

• M51 - composite with X-Ray radiation

• M51 and M51b sketch from 1850

  

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy (Read the complete post and then visit the first comment)

गॅलक्सी कशी असते ते कितीतरी सुंदर फोटोतून आपण पाहिलेच असेल, पण ती काय असते हे बघायचे असेल तर अँड्रोमेडाचा आतापर्यंत काढलेला सर्वात डिटेल फोटो बघाच (लिंक पहिल्या कंमेंट मध्ये).

झूम करून शेवट पर्यंत पहा, शक्यतो मोठ्या/ कॉम्पुटर स्क्रीनवर. प्रत्येक ठिपका एक तारा आहे, जवळ-जवळ प्रत्येकाला कमी जास्त ग्रह असतील, अगणित ग्रहांवर जीवसृष्टी असेल आणि आपण त्याच्याशी बोलू शकणार नाही, कदाचित कधीच!

Here is another breathtaking picture of the Andromeda galaxy, highest ever resolution till date. This picture uploaded with the post is just a low resolution version. The actual image is jaw dropping, you really appreciate what a galaxy is. Make sure to use the Zoom Tool image viewer (Link in first comment) .

The blinding bright left corner is the galactic center. Go far right and those are the outskirts, zoom there too. Just click to zoom in, go to max possible magnification - each dot you see is a star.

So many stars, most of them would have their own planetary system and many uncountable ones with life with which we may never establish contact ever!

Comments/Links:

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable

Website Thiefs

About 3-4 years back, we had come across a web-site which had copied the entire content of QualEx's web-site. We were very concerned, not knowing the motive of these fraudster(s), so we initiated a full fledged forensics. We were able to pinpoint the location(s) from where the copy and upload activity was done, but were unable to get more information. So we approached Police (IT), initially that was not taken seriously and no complaint was registered. So we had to move the Court who ordered the Police to lodge formal FIR.


Things moved swiftly then and the Police were able to nab the suspect who admitted to doing the activity.


The matter is sub-judice so can't talk more about it.


The matter ended there, so we thought! A few weeks back, I came across two more websites who have done the same thing. Nirmala and I are now Founders of two more companies! One in Hyderabad and other in Bangalore.


Copying layout is one thing, but copying content and information that clearly does not belong to you is a shameless thing to do. These guys go to the extent of showing me as their CEO, list QualEx's customers as theirs, etc.


Do not know if they are serving at-least their customers ethically after attracting them by such means.


Two pages listed below:

Just hope that such people will, one day or the other, pay for their actions and such incidents reduce in future.

My Rupee Symbol Entry in the design contest

As some of you may know our Finance Ministry had announced a contest for designing a symbol for Rupee. This is to replace the current way of writing 'Rs' by symbols like dollar, pound, euro, etc. currencies have.

Since long, I also had wished that our government changes the symbol and was enthused with this announcement. Hence decided to participate and submitted following symbol. Though I had high hopes, it did not get selected for the final five. Felt a bit sad, am human too. Anyway, I wish all the best the finalists.

Here is the Symbol:

And here is the description as per the contest guidelines:

Motivation	Due to my work profile, I have to make extensive use of financial and mathematical software programs spreadsheets (MS-Excel and others). I always wished there was a symbol for Indian Rupee, just like US$ or Euro - €, etc., but had to settle with the not-so-intuitive ‘INR’ or just avoid selecting currency symbol all-together.
Trigger	The Contest announced by Finance Ministry was the perfect trigger and thought about submitting at-least one design
Design Thoughts	Following were the guidelines I set to myself before starting the design, the symbol: Should adhere to the Contest Guidelines Should not be complex Should be easy to draw in daily use Should avoid use of ‘Dash’ or ‘Strike-Out’ lines which can imply a cutting or a slashing action and I personally felt it should not be used on our currency!
Explanation of the Submitted Symbol:
Indian History and Culture	The Outer Circle signifies a two fold meaning: It implies the World, in which our Rupee has to make a mark It also implies 0 (Zero or Shunya), one of the most important invention that India has given to the world along with the decimal system; without which the financial, mathematical and all other scientific computations would have been highly difficult to do and incomprehensible to most.
Visual Representation in Indian or English Script	The Inner Curve uses both, Devnagari as well as Roman (English) Script for visual depiction of the Rupee word, i.e.: Part of English Alphabet ‘R’ – which is the start of our currency’s name (Rupee), and, ‘Devnagari’ letter for ‘ra’ ‘र’– again part of and start of the name ‘rupaya’
Advantages of this symbol	Some advantages of this symbol are: Very Simple design Can be easily accommodated in to computer systems Can be easily drawn by people in daily use Can be drawn in one single stroke, i.e. without lifting the Pen/Pencil. Other currency symbols ($, €, £, ¥, etc.) need the pen to be lifted two or more times

I wish all the finalist the very best.

On occasion of Shivjayanti - Feb 19

How many of you know there are temples of Shivaji Maharaj? Frankly, I didn't know. In-fact there are two (in the whole world!). I got a chance to visit both of them in a short span of time and thought to share this on the occassion of Shivjayanti.

One of them is at Panhala Fort (Near Kolhapur) and is privately owned and is open just a day or so in a week.

While the second is on Sindhudurg Fort on Konkan coast. There is a sword used by Shivaji and also some jiretopes (crown?)

Though the actual idol is now covered with a metal mask, this is how it looks like. Shivaji Raje stayed at Sindhudurg, in disguise as a local, to oversee the construction of the fort building the navy.

The fort also has Shivaji's hand and foot imprints, the experience and feeling of seeing them from close is difficult to explain.

While celeberating his Birthday I wish and hope that people read and understand the great vision he had. Just check his instructions for the wood to be used for building armada (fleet, did the word 'aarmaar' get derived from armada?) - it applies even more today.

On Baner Road

The Procession

While returning home I got stuck in a big jam. The road was blocked by a long procession, couldn't what the occasion was. But got a chance to add two more animals to users of our Pune roads :)

Red Carpet for Cows in Pune

Well, it took me almost ten months to utter the second set of words.

While driving to office, I came across a scene when I wished my camera was with me. For a change, the camera was in the car.

Let the pictures describe the scene.



Location: Near Bhusari Colony, On Paud Road, Pune.
Time: 1:34pm
Day: Monday, Oct 9th

My Image for profile

Test Blog

Starting to babble.