Notice anything about our neighborhood. It is apparently sparsely populated. Lots of emptiness. But farther out? There’s a different story. Lots of galaxies clumped along “filaments.” Think of breakage lines in a pane of glass. Those distant galaxies lie along those lines. We, strangely, lie between the “cracks” in an untouched, unbroken segment. In contrast with the rest of the universe, we belong to a small group of outcasts in a region two billion light years in diameter.*
B. L. Hoscheit and A. J. Barger report that our galaxy doesn’t lie along a filament like so many others. The Milky Way is, by comparison, somewhat isolated. True, we have neighboring Magellanic Clouds and the great Andromeda Galaxy, the latter destined to collide with our own star system (but not during your lifetime), but in general, we are isolated, and our future mergers will be violent. Our sparsely populated neighborhood doesn't have a promising future of peace, but rather just more turmoil.
Is it because the only intelligence we can identify in our galaxy is a foolish, self-destructive species? Do we have some planet odor we can’t wash off even though we are the only body with surface water aplenty? What is it about us that led to this isolation? Why don’t the 2 trillion other galaxies want to include us in their cliques?
We need some sort of galaxy counselor, some objective mind to assess the cause of our isolation. But, of course, it might be too late for that. The other galaxies are already parts of filaments, already grouped, already far off. Seems we have already made our mistakes, and we are victims of self-inflicted ostracizing.
Whatever we did long ago set us apart. We can’t get that moment back obviously. And out there in the distance there are newer galaxies that are just, because of the speed of light and the stretching of space, getting information about who we are. Word of our foolish nature is spreading.
I guess the lesson is clear for any newly forming galaxies. Don’t do the things that isolate you. Don’t appear to be foolish, or self-destructive, or whatever can be perceived as inimical to the health and standing of others. And, if you have some oceans, wash.
* B.L. Hoscheit and A.J. Barger. Large local void, supernovae type Ia, and the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in a lambda-LTB model. American Astronomical Society, Austin, Texas, presented June 7, 2017. Science News online at
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-ways-loner-status-upheld?tgt=nr
B. L. Hoscheit and A. J. Barger report that our galaxy doesn’t lie along a filament like so many others. The Milky Way is, by comparison, somewhat isolated. True, we have neighboring Magellanic Clouds and the great Andromeda Galaxy, the latter destined to collide with our own star system (but not during your lifetime), but in general, we are isolated, and our future mergers will be violent. Our sparsely populated neighborhood doesn't have a promising future of peace, but rather just more turmoil.
Is it because the only intelligence we can identify in our galaxy is a foolish, self-destructive species? Do we have some planet odor we can’t wash off even though we are the only body with surface water aplenty? What is it about us that led to this isolation? Why don’t the 2 trillion other galaxies want to include us in their cliques?
We need some sort of galaxy counselor, some objective mind to assess the cause of our isolation. But, of course, it might be too late for that. The other galaxies are already parts of filaments, already grouped, already far off. Seems we have already made our mistakes, and we are victims of self-inflicted ostracizing.
Whatever we did long ago set us apart. We can’t get that moment back obviously. And out there in the distance there are newer galaxies that are just, because of the speed of light and the stretching of space, getting information about who we are. Word of our foolish nature is spreading.
I guess the lesson is clear for any newly forming galaxies. Don’t do the things that isolate you. Don’t appear to be foolish, or self-destructive, or whatever can be perceived as inimical to the health and standing of others. And, if you have some oceans, wash.
* B.L. Hoscheit and A.J. Barger. Large local void, supernovae type Ia, and the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in a lambda-LTB model. American Astronomical Society, Austin, Texas, presented June 7, 2017. Science News online at
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-ways-loner-status-upheld?tgt=nr
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