'Rivers' of stars revealed flowing across the sky

[FLO]

Three "rivers" of stars have been discovered stretching thousands of light years across the northern sky. The smoothness of their trailing arcs may help scientists learn more about the nature of dark matter in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Earlier in March, Caltech researcher Carl Grillmair and Roberta Johnson, a graduate student at California State University, Long Beach, both in the US, reported a tail of stars covering at least 45° of the sky. It lies between the Big Dipper's bowl and Arcturus, a bright star in the constellation Bootes.

The tail is about 76,000 light years away and is thought to consist of thousands of stars travelling ahead of and behind the cluster NGC 5466. "Since then, I've found two more, even longer ones," Grillmair told New Scientist. "It turns out they're all over the place."

http://tinyurl.com/z2gck

[FLO]

Here:

http://tinyurl.com/lw4bw

[Astroman]

There was something in the journals about this a couple years ago, but they didn't equate it to dark energy, they equated it to the Milky Way consuming other, smaller galaxies. The proper motions of the stars in these streams were flowing in a direction against the rotation of the galaxy. I haven't read the whole article yet but I don't see the connection to Ngc 5466, which is a planetary nebula near M3. ??

[The Warthog]

tinyurl isn't working for me tonight, but I take it this isn't something I can see in my 4.5"?

[FLO]

Here you are WH:

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8878--rivers-of-stars-revealed-flowing-across-the-sky.html