Smith's Cloud

Smith's Cloud

Smith's Cloud is a high velocity cloud of hydrogen gas located in the constellation Aquila at Galactic coordinates "l" = 39°, "b" = −13°. The cloud was discovered in 1963 by Gail Bieger, "née" Smith, who was an astronomy student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.cite journal | url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1963BAN....17..203S | title=Peculiar Feature at l = 40°.5, b = - 15°.0 | year=1963 | author=Smith, G.P. | journal=Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands | volume=17 | pages=203] Smith's cloud has a mass of at least one million solar masses and measures convert|3000|parsec|ly|lk=on long by convert|1000|pc|ly|abbr=on wide in projection.cite journal | doi=10.1086/588838 | title=The Smith Cloud: A High-Velocity Cloud Colliding with the Milky Way | year=2008 | author=Lockman, Felix J. | journal=The Astrophysical Journal | volume=679 | pages=L21] The cloud is between convert|11100|parsec|ly|abbr=on and convert|13700|parsec|ly|abbr=on from Earth and has an angular diameter of 10 to 12 degrees, approximately as wide as the Orion constellation, or about 20 times the diameter of the full moon, although the cloud is not visible to the naked eye.cite news | author=David Shiga | title=Giant gas cloud to crash into our galaxy | url=http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13179-giant-gas-cloud-to-crash-into-our-galaxy.html | work=NewScientist.com | date=11 January 2008 | accessdate=2008-02-07]

The cloud is apparently moving towards the disk of the Milky Way at 73 ± 26 kilometers per second. Smith's Cloud is expected to merge with the Milky Way in 27 million years at a point in the Perseus arm. Astronomers believe it will strike the Milky Way disk at a 45° angle, and its impact may produce a burst of star formation or a supershell of neutral hydrogen.

References

External links

* [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080112153747.htm Science Daily: Massive Gas Cloud Speeding Toward Collision With Milky Way]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7184521.stm BBC: Huge gas cloud will hit Milky Way]


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