Our Mean Big Sister, Andromeda

So this morning I'm reading the news while I wait for the water to come back on at which time I will head to the kitchen to mix-up another batch of Christmas cookies to take to church tomorrow for our Eastern Christmas celebration. (How's that for a sentence that needs to be divided into at least two, if not more, sentences?)

Yes, tomorrow is Christmas! I'll take down all the decorations after we get home tomorrow afternoon. The tree has been up for a month and I will miss it's beautiful lights. But that is a post for tomorrow.

As I was reading about the Russia vs. Ukraine 'gas war' I shivered a bit and decided I really need to go put my sweatshirt back on because it truly is chilly in here this morning. The turtleneck alone is fine when I am wandering around from one room to the other, making the bed, folding clean clothes and picking up stuff scattered around the room. But sitting here drinking another cup of coffee and reading - well, 64+ degrees is just a bit too cool for comfort. My back and shoulders are cold. Be right back....

Ok, I'm back. I fed the fish while I was at it. Little Fishy in the fish pond was begging oh-so-cutely when I walked past and I realized I had not fed the poor little guy yet this morning. His water is so cold, being unheated, that he spends most of his days and nights floating around on the water side or belly up, looking for all the world like he's dead. I just leave him be now since he is always so startled and looks really scared when I come up and tap the side of the pond near where he floats to see if he is still alive. I haven't seen the algae eater in several days so I'm not sure if he's still alive or if the cold did him in. I'm hoping he's just staying cozy next to the filter motor. The other two fish, in their little tanks on the table, are fine, more active at night when it's warmer in here after a day of people sometimes turning on the electric heater for a few minutes until the electric meter starts smoking again. I'm glad these 3 fish seem to be cold-weather hardy.

All of that to get to the point of why I decided to write and opened up this page to start with! The morning news!

I was thrilled to learn this morning that the Milky Way (the galaxy in which we all live) has recently gained weight. Now we are better prepared for the big collision with our formerly bigger sister galaxy, Andromeda, yes, for the collision that is definitely coming! We may even come out the winners in the coming collision!

"Previously we thought Andromeda was dominant, and that we were the little sister of Andromeda," Reid said. "But now it's more like we're fraternal twins."

That's not necessarily good news. A bigger Milky Way means that it could be crashing violently into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sooner than predicted (notice that there is no period at the end of that thought. I took it out because I'm going to insert some thoughts here.)

When I read those two paragraphs I laughed. First of all, my dear husband is a fraternal twin. When he and his brother were growing up they were NEVER the same size. Ralph was always several inches and many pounds heavier than Mel. They were, at times, like the twins in the movie Twins (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twin brothers). Until people got to know them they just couldn't believe two boys so different in looks, size and personality could really be twins. But they were - they still are, actually. :) ) So some scientist and news reporters comparing two galaxies to 'fraternal twins' instead of 'sisters' made me laugh. Who said twins, fraternal or maternal, have to be alike? Ha!

When I read those two paragraphs, after laughing I just shook my head and thought to myself, "Why in the world does everything have to be scary, reported in such a way that it is meant to make people frightened?" Good grief! Two galaxies colliding in space is really not something anyone can do anything about after all. We can't set up a government commission to study how best to keep Andromeda at bay, or change the route of the Milky Way. We can't throw billions and gazillions of dollars at the problem in hopes that scientists will make some discovery that could possibly change the course of two galaxies traveling through space. I mean after all we are going pretty fast here. "...Reid was able to determine the speed at which the spiral-shaped Milky Way is spinning around its center.

That speed — about 568,000 miles per hour — is faster than the 492,000 mph that scientists had been using for decades. That's about a 15 percent jump in spiral speed." (Gosh! - that's faster than our taxi driver yesterday!!) And that is just the speed we are going around in circles around a big black hole after all, to say nothing of the speed at which we are hurtling through space toward our formerly bigger-than-us sister.

I enjoy reading articles like this one. First of all there is interesting information sandwiched in-between sentences written for the purpose of frightening the populace. And second, they make me laugh and brighten up my day. After all, why should I be concerned that Ukraine and Russia are fighting over the price of natural gas, gas with which I cook our food, gas which heats our flat, gas which in many ways actually keeps us alive here in Ukraine - why should I be concerned about that when, gasp! Andromeda and the Milky Way are going to collide and we'll all die in the collision when both galaxies are torn apart and a new galaxy is created "billions of years from now."?? (Notice that this ended with a period because is the end of the previously quoted sentence.)

Well, the water is back on - time to go make Christmas cookies. I think I'll make them ALL stars and frost them in a bunch of pastel colors because stars do come in a variety of colors in space, and then I'll sprinkle them with multi-colored sprinkles and think of all the planets and moons which surround all the stars in space. And then I'll put them in a container and call that container "Space - The Final Frontier."

But I promise - I will NOT shake it, drop it or otherwise cause my stars to collide with each other in there!

quotes from FoxNews article: Milky Way Galaxy Suddenly Much Bigger, Heavier (Even the headline makes me laugh! "Suddenly" ha ha ha - Put it on a diet!!!)
(This is NOT the Milky Way, but the people at Hubble Space Telescope say it looks like the Milky Way...) Spiral Galaxy NGC 3949: A Galaxy Similar to the Milky Way

This IS Andromeda - looks pretty safe to me... Andromeda Galaxy M31