TNRTB Archive – Retained for reference information
Studies by two separate teams of American astronomers confirm certain life-critical design features in our galaxy and our galaxy’s nearest large neighbors. One team compared a detailed study of the globular cluster systems of five nearby spiral galaxies with previous studies on the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. The astronomers confirmed that indeed both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies have had a relatively quiescent merging history. That is, no major merging events took place in either galaxy since the formation of their galactic thick disks. Another team of American astronomers demonstrated the consequences of a major merging event. For the merger system ARP 299 they observed a supernova rate about a thousand times greater than the Milky Way Galaxy’s, they noted much more powerful supernova eruptions, and they deduced an even higher supernova rate a few million years ago. Such extreme supernova activity would sterilize any life in the galaxy and, of course, the merger itself would seriously disrupt the galactic orbits of planetary systems in the galaxy. Thus, for life to be possible in a galaxy, that galaxy and any large galaxy in its immediate vicinity must be free of major merging events since the formation of its primary spiral structure. Our Milky Way Galaxy seems no accident of nature.
Rupali Chandar et al., “The Globular Cluster Systems of Five Nearby Spiral Galaxies: New Insights from Hubble Space Telescope Imaging,” Astrophysical Journal 611 (2004): 220-44.
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