SIM PlanetQuest To Predict Date Of Cosmic Collision

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 08, 2007

Scientists plan to pin down the date of a galactic collision billions of years in our future by first reaching back to the Big Bang, a feat that will be made possible by the extreme precision of NASA's planned SIM PlanetQuest mission. By recreating some of the earliest moments of our portion of the universe, a team led by the University of Maryland's Ed Shaya will establish for the first time the masses and orbits of galaxies ranging from one million to 15 million light years from Earth.

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/SIM_PlanetQuest_To_Predict_Date_Of_Cosmic_Collision_999.html

To quote:

A slug in no hurry on Alpha Centauri

SIM PlanetQuest will be able to detect movement of just four microarcseconds per year. According to Shaya, that's equivalent to the motion one would detect if observing "a slug in no hurry" at the distance of Alpha Centauri, a star about 4.3 light years away.

"I was certainly not planning that in my lifetime we would have the technology to measure that," Shaya said. "Before I heard of SIM, it was something for several centuries out, I thought."

Proper motion, combined with the values established for radial motion and distance, will enable Shaya and his colleagues to calculate the three-dimensional velocity and direction of motion for each galaxy in the study. Then, after the observation phase of the study is completed, they will run a series of computer models to calculate masses and orbits for each galaxy.