Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/pfrancis/roleplay/ziggy/model_answer2.doc Дата изменения: Wed Jun 12 09:40:59 2002 Дата индексирования: Tue Oct 2 10:31:53 2012 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: внешние планеты

Astrophysics Group: USS Drongo

Briefing


To: Captain Howard

From: Astrophysics Group

CC: Ships Computer

Date: 12/06/02

Re: Second Conclusions from Further Astrophysical Observations


Summary

URGENT: A pair of probably artificial satellites, in a low orbit, is
passing over us. This suggests that intelligent life is present on or near
Ziggy.

Planet Ziggy seems to be located in the outer regions of an elliptical
galaxy, or perhaps in a globular cluster orbiting such a galaxy. We are
not, therefore, in the Milky Way any more. We lie around 10 kpc from the
centre of this galaxy.

We have not been able to detect any spiral galaxies elsewhere in the sky.
Instead, all we detect are spherical systems which are probably elliptical
galaxies. This suggests that we are no longer in our own universe.


Artifical Satellites

A pair of blue dots is moving very rapidly across the sky. They are moving
far faster than the Moon, indicating that they are probably closer than it.
If they were further away, they would have to be moving at quite
extraordinary speeds. They cannot be stars: even the closest, fastest stars
would take years to move across the sky like this. Even other planets would
usually take weeks. We therefore strongly suspect that they are small moons
or satellites orbiting low above Ziggy.

They seem to be doing circles around their common centre-of-gravity. Iif
they are as close as we think, they would be too small for their gravity to
achieve this. There must therefore be some other force holding the two
objects together - perhaps a tether between them. This strongly suggests
that these objects are artifical.


The Milk Stain

No milky-way is seen. We conclude that we are not, therefore, in the disk
of a galaxy. Instead, a vast collection of faint stars covers around 25% of
the sky. We are calling it the Milk Stain. This could be an elliptical
galaxy or a globular cluster.

Several pulsing stars were seen in the Milk stain. Their rapid period
suggests that they are RR Lyrae stars, similar to those we saw last year.
As these new stars are 100,000,000 times fainter, they must be
(100,000,000=10,000 times further away (from the inverse square law). The
centre of the milk stain is thus roughly 10 kpc distant.

This distance implies that it is much larger than a globular cluster. We
therefore suggest that it is an elliptical galaxy. We could either be in
the outer regions, or in a globular cluster orbiting it. If the latter is
true, the centre of the globular must lie on the other side of Ziggy, where
we cannot see it.


Fuzzballs

As you know, if you point a telescope anywhere in the sky on Earth, you see
galaxies: both disk galaxies and elliptical galaxies.

Ziggy appears different. We see no disk galaxies anywhere. Instead, we see
round objects that could be small elliptical galaxies or globular clusters.
Their spectra support this interpretation.

If they were globular clusters, orbiting around the Milk Stain, they should
mostly be seen near the Milk Stain. This is not observed: they are seen in
roughly equal numbers all over the sky. We suggest therefore that most, if
not all of them, are elliptical galaxies.

The lack of spiral galaxies suggests that we are not in our own universe
any more.