Snapshot of galactic doom

Take one part Spitzer Space Telescope, one part Hubble Space Telescope, and two galaxies. Shake well, bake covered for a few million years, and get this:

Click to embiggen, or go here for access to much higher res images!

Coooool.

This is NGC 6240, what used to be two galaxies but are in the process of becoming one. We see colliding galaxies all over the sky, but what makes this one special is the timing and its location.

Collisions take hundreds of millions of years, starting from the first tentative approach to the complete merging of the two. But the different steps of the process take different amounts of time. The initial approach takes a long time, for example, so we see lots of those. The actual physical merging also takes many millions of years, so we commonly see that as well. But while the outer parts of the galaxy are interacting, so are the cores. The time between the outer parts settling down and the inner parts doing their thing can be fairly short. NGC 6240 is right now at the moment in its life where the two galaxies have started to merge, but the cores of the two are still distinct.

Also, the farther away we look, the more volume of the Universe we see, so the more galaxies we see. In the distant Universe we do see galaxies in this stage, but they are so far away that details are unclear. NGC 6240 is only 400 million light years away, which is a ridiculously long way in human terms, but close enough in cosmic scales that Hubble and Spitzer can see those details.

The outer parts of the galaxy are still messy, churned up by the violence of the collision. Huge gas and dust clouds have collided, which triggers an immense burst of star formation. Newborn stars create a lot of dust — giant organic molecules that are very efficient at absorbing the visible light Hubble detects. However, warm dust emits infrared light, and Spitzer can see that.

So in the Hubble image we see the stars and gas tossed all over the place, and the chaotic dust (in red) detected by Spitzer. Combined, the two images tell a tale of what a pair of galaxies is like just before their cores start to merge, a snapshot in an instant of a catastrophic event.

… and in a few million years, the fireworks will really begin. All big galaxies have a supermassive black hole in their hearts, and the two bruisers in this pair will start to work their magic as well. The cores will combine, and the gravitational wake of the two black holes interacting will make the previous merging process seem like a gentle breeze. The gas and dust in the center of the merging monsters will become incredibly turbulent, mixed violently and suddenly, creating a vast wave of star formation. A huge amount of energy will blast out of the core, and get absorbed by the dust there. It will convert that high energy radiation into infrared, pouring out the invisible light, and NGC 6240 may become a ULIRG, an ultra luminous infrared galaxy.

It will pose no threat to us at its vast distance, but we’ll have a great view of this step in a galactic merger as well. Too bad we have to wait several million years for it. So for now we’ll just have to be satisfied with catching this merger in the act. There’s still plenty to learn from it.

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Student Designs Biodegradable Packaging for McDonald’s

by Alexandra Kain

Fast food packaging takes up a hefty chunk of our landfill space while effectively clear-cutting our forests. The golden arch proprietors dole out over 2 billion burgers a year, each individually wrapped in plastic coated paper and thrown into a paper bag with a few paper napkins–that’s about 75 per second, worldwide. Toss in a dozen other fast food conglomerates and we’re up to our ears in greasy garbage. What’s worse is that most of this paper makes its way into a trashcan after only about 5 minutes of use. Seeking to counter this consumptive cycle, University of the Arts grad student, Andrew Millar, designed biodegradable packaging for McDonald’s from grass paper, which has naturally grease-resistant properties.

In preparation for this school assignment, Millar frequented McD’s restaurants taking note of customer interaction with the packaging. Noticing that people would often rip their bags into a tray, he designed his bag to open out into a comfortable eating station. Folds in the bag keep inside items separated without the need for interior packaging. The outer part of bag is made from recycled pulp paper, and grease-proof grass paper lines the inside. Both are highly biodegradable and most definitely more sustainable than clear-cutting.

According to their most recent environmental performance report, only around 30% of McDonald’s packaging comes from recycled sources (excluding China), and their CO2 emissions near 2 million tons annualy–as measured by electricity used in their restaurants. This, of course, does not including food or packaging production.

As yet, Millar hasn’t approached the company about his design but we’re sure hoping he does. The McDonald’s website clearly states their desire to “continue exploring ways to reduce the environmental impacts of our consumer packaging and waste in our restaurant operations.” Even leviathans like McDonald’s and Burger King are not impervious to climate change and our growing garbage problem. The only problem with biodegradable packaging, though, is that it won’t actually biodegrade if it goes straight into a plastic trash bag and gets buried in chemical-ridden landfill. The best solution? Stop eating fast food.

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Recession Ends Pollution of World’s Largest Freshwater Lake

Written by Jake Richardson

The global economic downturn has caused a large paper and pulp mill on Lake Baikal in Russia to halt operation.

Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill started running in 1966. For 43 years, despite the efforts of environmentalists, it dumped enormous quantities of toxin-laced wastewater into the pristine lake.

Pacific Environment states the Communist government-backed mill had been ‘dumping over 100,000 cubic meters of polluted wastewater into Lake Baikal each day since its construction in 1966.’ Some of the pollutants were sulfates, phenols, dioxin, and chlorides.

In 1990 a Time article noted that there wasn’t documentation of all the damage that was being done to the aquatic life due to the mill’s toxic discharges: “Only a couple of years after these events, a Komsomol (communist worker) expedition brought back photographs showing the massive destruction of Baikal’s fish and plankton caused by toxic wastes. No accidental discharges had been logged. As always, everything was fine on paper”. The amount of toxins in the effluent was estimated by some scientists to be multiple times higher than what had been established by the government as acceptable: “Two years later, a commission of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences concluded that discharges of pollutants from the mill exceeded those projected by 10 to 200-500 percent.”

At 395 miles long and 49 miles wide, Baikal is said to contain 20% of the Earth’s freshwater supply. It is also home to 1500-1600 endemic animal species, meaning they live only in that area. Perhaps there are so many endemic creatures because besides being the deepest and largest freshwater lake by volume, it is also the oldest at 25 million years of age.

It is home to the nerpa, an extremely rare freshwater seal. One of the most important fishes is the Omul, which is a protein staple for many Russian people. Since the mill has shut down the foul rotting-cabbage stench in the air has been reduced greatly, and the outlook for tourism and its financial benefits are much greater. It is unlikely it will resume operation due to insurmountable debt.

To see even more stunning images of Baikal have a look at these panoramas.

Image Credit: Baikal Wiki, Public Domain and Gallery from the Russian News and Information Agency

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