Milky way “vibrating like a drum”

[FLO]

Our Milky Way galaxy is warped, and vibrates like a drum, because of the influence of two small companion galaxies, astronomers have found...

...the vibration consists almost wholly of three “notes,” also called modes. These notes would be unimaginably deep by human standards—some three million octaves, or scales, below the note called middle C on a piano.

This means that if a piano could play these notes, it would require a keyboard about the width of Iceland to do so.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060110_drumfrm.htm

[Astroman]

Theres a lot of warped individuals around, so the fact that the milky is also warped may explain why this is....

That may be true, but their collective mass is insufficient to explain the "bendiness". :scratch:

[The Warthog]

Theres a lot of warped individuals around, so the fact that the milky is also warped may explain why this is....

Hey! I resent that remark. :x

Oh...

[lunator]

Inn Astronomynow they say that the Andromeda galaxy is warped as well.

It appears that being warped in the local group is very common

[The Warthog]

In the sixties, the theory was that the warpiness was due to gravitational influence from the Magellanic Clouds. Are these the two galaxies that they are talking about?

[lunator]

WH

Yep they are the culprits. Although it appears that dark matter is needed to make the model fit the observations. :?