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back to article Spooky ghost light reveals dead galaxies torn apart over 6bn years

Astro boffins have observed a faded, ghostly glow of stars belched from ancient galaxies that NASA said were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago. The chaotic, straying stars were spotted by the US and European space agency's Hubble telescope – which is the only instrument capable of making such an …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    The title should be "Against a Dark Background"

    5 0 Reply
    1. i like crisps
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: The title should be "Against a Dark Background"

      Or, "Blackpool Illuminations"

      0 0 Reply
      1. i like crisps
        Reply Icon
        Trollface

        Re: The title should be "Against a Dark Background"

        Or, "Space Jism".

        0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    seeing is believing

    Image credit: NASA/ESA/IAC/HFF Team, STScI, Industrial Light & Magic.

    0 0 Reply
  3. Frumious Bandersnatch

    wand'rin' stars: heaven in goodbye forever shocker

    You nearly managed to shoehorn in lyrics from that excellent Lee Marvin song...

    1 0 Reply
  4. James 51
    Joke

    Wow, the reapers have been busy.

    1 0 Reply
  5. Christoph

    That's a bit of a sod for any civilisations on planets of those stars. It's a long way to the next-door neighbour.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      tbh it's not going to do us any good being "close" to our neighbours. The ridiculously huge energy requirements involoved mean interstellar travel just ain't gonna happen.

      0 0 Reply
      1. tony2heads
        Reply Icon

        @Martin Budden

        It would even be a hell of a long way for any form of communication. We could chat with nearby neighbours (if there are any) over a timescale of decades. For them it would take many millenia.

        0 0 Reply
  6. Bunbury

    Now what we need here

    Is an artists impression of the night sky from a planet circling one of those stars. Would they be individual stars or be ejected in clumps. If your night sky were just galaxies in the cluster and the odd wandering star that would be a bit dark.

    0 0 Reply
    1. JCitizen
      Reply Icon
      Alert

      Re: Now what we need here

      Speculating on the chaos that would happen to the planetary orbits of such ejected stars is amusing. I imagine they bounced around like being on rubber bands, and some of them would be flung off as well! The tidal forces on the individual planets would be disastrous to say the least.

      1 0 Reply

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