I think the stars and gas in the disk of the milky way has an angular momentum because the disk is rotating. That AM will be expressed in the gas clouds the form in the disk and is conserved as the clouds collapse into stars. That AM is conserved throughout the life of the star and is expressed in the shape of the planetary nebulae. In tight clusters, close encounters between stars could cause the axis of rotation to shift out of galactic alignment, but a star born in a quiet cluster could retain the AM orientation of the parent cloud and the milky way disk. DT ________________________________ From: Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2013 1:07 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered That may well be it. I had suspected it involved the stars' orientation while forming but I wouldn't have guessed a magnetic field was involved. The writer says, "The galaxy itself has a magnetic field," and that's something I never heard about until now. If that's so, how is it generated, and how strong is it? Could it be (or could it have been) strong enough to affect the orientation of forming stars? That's hard for me to believe. The angular momentum of the galaxy seems more reasonable to me, except that this wouldn't change with the more distant nebulae. I would like to see some study showing how powerful this magnetic field is, if it exists. Thanks, Joe ________________________________ From: Daniel Holmes <danielh@holmesonics.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2013 12:50 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered I've been doing some more looking into this...looks like it might be the galactic core's magnetic field! http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/05/planetary_nebulae_weird_... Dan On Sep 5, 2013, at 12:46 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
It's really intriguing, Dan. Maybe this is some effect of dark energy or dark matter. I would have thought it was because the entire galaxy's stars have a similar orientation while forming, maybe due to the galaxy's rotation -- but that's disproved by the fact that more distant nebulae are not oriented in any special way like these toward the center of the galaxy. Thanks, Joe
________________________________ From: Daniel Holmes <shares@getpocket.com> To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 7:49 PM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered
This is pretty interesting.
Dan
Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/weird-planetary-nebula-alignment-d...
%textQuotePrefix% %quote%
---
Shared from Pocket (http://getpocket.com/) _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club.
To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options". _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club.
To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".
-- Daniel Holmes, danielh@holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options". _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".