Expansion: Big Bang or Stretching? 10
Colliding Galaxies. Some galaxies contain two distinct rotating
systems, as if a galaxy rotating one way collided with another
rotating the opposite way. Based on the speeds of galaxies we see, and
their separation distances today, such mergers would take billions of
years.
Does this mean that the universe must be billions of years old? No.
Before the heavens were stretched out, galaxies would have been closer
to each other, resulting in much greater speeds and frequent
collisions. Today, galaxies are stretched so far apart that, according
to astronomers=92 calculations, collisions should rarely happen.
However, past galactic mergings are surprisingly common (14).
If some galaxies merged over billions of years, why haven=92t the
different rotations within a merged galaxy homogenized by now?
Obviously, the mergings did not happen billions of years ago (15).
14. =93Violent encounters between galaxies appear surprisingly common.=94
Joshua Barnes et al., =93Colliding Galaxies,=94 Scientific American, Vol.
265, August 1991, p. 40.
=93... merging two spiral galaxies to make an elliptical [galaxy] is
statistically improbable.=94 James E. Gunn, as quoted by Karen Hartley,
=93Mixing It Up in Space,=94 Science News, Vol. 135, 8 April 1989, p. 219.
15. =93Other studies of elliptical galaxies have found additional signs
of recent merging. In some ellipticals, for example, the central
region rotates in one direction, while the outer parts spin the other
way. Such a countervailing rotation pattern would be difficult to
explain if these galaxies formed all of one piece but could come about
quite naturally from a merger.=94 Barnes et al., p. 41.
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