Interacting Galaxies - Galaxy Mergers and Collisions

Galaxies are the largest single objects in the universe. Each one contains upwards of trillions of stars in a single gravitationally bound system. While the universe is extremely large, and many galaxies are very far apart, it is actually quite common for galaxies to group together in clusters. Its also common for them to collide with each other. The result is the creation of new galaxies. Astronomers can trace the construction of galaxies as they collided throughout history, and now know that this is the main way galaxies are built.  Ã‚   Theres a whole area of astronomy devoted to the study of colliding galaxies. The process not only affects the galaxies themselves, but astronomers also observe that starbirth is often triggered when galaxies merge together.   Galaxy Interactions Large galaxies, like the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy, came together as smaller objects collided and merged. Today, astronomers see smaller satellites orbiting nearby both the Milky Way and Andromeda. These dwarf galaxies have some of the characteristics of larger galaxies, but are on a much smaller scale and can be irregularly shaped.  Some of the companions are being cannibalized by our galaxy.   The Milky Ways largest satellites are called the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They seem to be orbiting our galaxy in a billions-of-years-long orbit, and may not actually ever merge with the Milky Way. However, they are affected by its gravitational pull, and may only be approaching the galaxy for the first time. If so, there still could be a merger in the distant future. The shapes of Magellanic clouds have been distorted by that, causing them to appear irregular. Theres also evidence of large streams of gas being pulled from them into our own galaxy.   Galaxy Mergers Large-galaxy collisions do occur, which create huge new galaxies in the process. Often what happens is that two large spiral galaxies will merge, and due to the gravitational warping that precedes the collision, the galaxies will lose their spiral structure. Once the galaxies are merged, astronomers suspect that they form a new structure known as an elliptical galaxy. Occasionally, depending on the relative sizes of the merging galaxies, an irregular or peculiar galaxy  is a result of the merger. Interestingly, while galaxies themselves may merge, the process doesnt always hurt the stars they contain. This is because while galaxies do have stars and planets, theres a LOT of empty space, as well as giant clouds of gas and dust. However, colliding galaxies that do contain a large amount of gas enter a period of rapid star formation. Its usually much greater than the average rate of star formation in a non-colliding galaxy. Such a merged system is known as a starburst galaxy; aptly named for a large number of stars that are created in a short amount of time as a result of the collision. Merger of the Milky Way With the Andromeda Galaxy A close to home example of a large galaxy merger is the one that will occur between the Andromeda galaxy with our very own Milky Way. The result, which will take millions of years to unfold, will be a new galaxy.   Currently, Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years away from the Milky Way. Thats about 25 times as far away as the Milky Way is wide. This is, obviously quite a distance, but is quite small considering the scale of the universe.  Hubble Space Telescope data suggests that the Andromeda galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way, and the two will begin to merge in about 4 billion years. Heres how it will play out. In about 3.75 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will virtually fill the night sky. At the same time, it and the Milky Way will start warping due to the immense gravitational pull each will have on the other. Ultimately the two will combine to form a single, large elliptical galaxy. It is also possible that another galaxy, called the Triangulum galaxy, which currently orbits Andromeda, will also participate in the merger.  The resulting galaxy might be named Milkdromeda, if anybody is still around to be naming objects in the sky.   What Will Happen to Earth? Chances are that the merger will have little effect on our solar system. Since most of Andromeda is empty space, gas, and dust, much like the Milky Way, many of the stars should find new orbits around the combined galactic center. That center may have as many as three supermassive black holes until they, too, merge.   The greater danger to our solar system is the increasing brightness of our Sun, which will eventually exhaust its hydrogen fuel and evolve into a red giant. That will start to happen in about four billion years. At that point, it will engulf Earth as it expands. Life, it seems, will have died out long before any kind of galaxy merger takes place. Or, if were lucky, our descendants will have figured out a way to escape the solar system and find a world with a younger star.   Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Comparing Herodotus s The Sea And Essay - 2122 Words

Herodotus is accused by Edward Said to be progenitor of Orientalism. Regardless of this indictment, Said fails to observe the fundamental nature of Herodotus s division of the world. Accordingly, he describes the world in the binary of East and West. I contend that this ideal is unfounded in Herodotus s text, and instead, the known world of Herodotus was quartered. Hence, by edification of â€Å"Greekness† and it following anomalies Furthermore, these delusions are refuted by the agreement texts of Redfield’s Herodotus the tourist† and Munson’s Herodotus and ethnicity. I Before on embarking on Said misconceptions anent Herodotus, he avails himself of Euripides The Bacchae and Aeschylus s The Persians, which he argues in â€Å"The two aspects of the Orient that set it off from the West in this pair of plays† which are the catalysts of Orientalism, and accordingly, neither are Herodotean texts. Nonetheless, I will refute the occasions he to greater degree implicitly examines Herodotus. II In anticipation of the task in reviewing Said’s misconception anent Herodotus, a close elucidation of the quintessential nature of Redfield s and Munsons’s works pertaining to the matter of who in were and who were not Greek, alongside anomalies who percolated this permeable division. Redfield establishes the identity of the Greeks and that of non-Greeks, specifically, by their culture, denoted by three ethnological terms: â€Å"diaita, ethea, and nomoi† (98, Redfield). In their layeringShow MoreRelatedThe Battles Between The Persian Empire And Ancient Greece1360 Words   |  6 PagesThermopylae and Herodotus Wenxin Zheng Exchange student, Nanjing University, China Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred ten years after the Battle of Marathon in the first Bohemia War, is another famous historical clash between the Persian Empire and ancient Greece. In Thermopylae, Spartans resisted for days, blocked the powerful Persian army from conquering Greek. In BC 490, the Persian army crossed the Aegean Sea and landed on the Marathon plain in the first Bohemian war, encroaching the AthensRead MoreThe War From The Realm Of Myth And Poetry1267 Words   |  6 PagesTrojan War would inevitably have taken place, with or without Helen. He goes on to continue that the presumptive kidnapping of Helen can be seen merely an excuse to launch a pre-ordained war for control of land, trade, profit, and access to the Black Sea. All these accounts could be true but Eric Cline believes that the events happened and took place, he believes that the Trojan War is true. â€Å"The male heroes of epic poetry, Helen of Troy has been immortalized, but not for deeds of strength and honor;Read Moretheme of alienation n no where man by kamala markandeya23279 Words   |  94 Pagesin Sicily, he was made one of the â€Å"Probouloi† (special commissioners), mainly due to his widespread fame. From reliable contemporary accounts one learns that Sophocles was a handsome, wealthy man of great charm. He had friends like Pericles and Herodotus, the great Greek historian. The Victorian critic, Matthew Arnold, praised Sophocles as a man â€Å"who saw life steadily and saw it whole.† The ancient biographer, Phyrnicus, says that Sophocles’ life was happy and that he retained all his faculties to

Is Effective Banking System Gives Healthy Economy In A Country free essay sample

Next came Bank of Hindustan and Bengal Bank. The East India Company established Bank of Bengal (1809), Bank of Bombay (1840) and Bank of Madras (1843) as independent units and called it Presidency Banks. These three banks were amalgamated in 1920 and Imperial Bank of India was established which started as private shareholders banks, mostly Europeans shareholders. During the first phase the growth was very slow and banks also experienced periodic failures between 1913 and 1948. There were approximately 1100 banks, mostly small. To streamline the functioning and activities of commercial banks, the Government of India came up with The Banking Companies Act, 1949 which was later changed to Banking Regulation Act 1949 as per amending Act of 1965 (Act No. 23 of 1965). Reserve Bank of India was vested with extensive powers for the supervision of banking in India as the Central Banking Authority. During those day’s public has lesser confidence in the banks. As an aftermath deposit mobilization was slow. Abreast of it the savings bank facility provided by the Postal department was comparatively safer. Moreover, funds were largely given to the traders. PHASE II: Government took major steps in this Indian Banking Sector Reform after independence. In 1955, it nationalized Imperial Bank of India with extensive banking facilities on a large scale especially in rural and semi-urban areas. Second phase of nationalization Indian Banking Sector Reform was carried out in 1980 with seven more banks. This step brought 80% of the banking segment in India under Government ownership. The following are the steps taken by the Government of India to Regulate Banking Institutions in the Country: †¢1949: Enactment of Banking Regulation Act. †¢1955: Nationalization of State Bank of India. 1959: Nationalization of SBI subsidiaries. †¢1961: Insurance cover extended to deposits. †¢1969: Nationalization of 14 major banks. †¢1971: Creation of credit guarantee corporation. †¢1975: Creation of regional rural banks. †¢1980: Nationalization of seven banks with deposits over 200 crore. After the nationalization of banks, the b ranches of the public sector bank India raised to approximately 800% in deposits and advances took a huge jump by 11,000%. Banking in the sunshine of Government ownership gave the public implicit faith and immense confidence about the sustainability of these institutions. Unit Trust of India (UTI-I) ?Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) ?General Insurance Corporation Ltd. Also with associates viz. National Insurance Company Ltd. , The New India Assurance Company, The Oriental Insurance Corporation and United Insurance Company Ltd. Axis Bank in India today is capitalised with Rs. 232. 86 Crores with 47. 50% public holding other than promoters. It has more than 200 branch offices and Extension Counters in the country with over 1250 Axis Bank ATM proving to be one of the largest ATM networks in the country. Axis Bank India commits to adopt the best industry practices internationally to achieve excellence. Axis Bank has strengths in retail as well as corporate banking. By the end of December 2004, Axis Bank in India had over 2. 7 million debit cards. This is the first bank in India to offer the AT PAR Cheque facility, without any charges, to all its Savings Bank customers in all the places across the country where it has presence. With the AT PAR cheque facility, customers can make cheque payments to any beneficiary at any of its existence place. The ceiling per instrument is Rs. 50,000/-. The latest offerings of the bank along with Dollar variant is the Euro and Pound Sterling variants of the International Travel Currency Card. The Travel Currency Card is a signature based pre-paid travel card which enables traveler’s global access to their money in local currency of the visiting country in a safe and convenient way. The Bank has strengths in both retail and corporate banking and is committed to adopting the best industry practices internationally in order to achieve excellence was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament; neither did the Government of India own it nor contributes any capital. The RBI was asked to contribute one-half of its initial capital of Rs 5 crore, and given the mandate of running the UTI in the interest of the unit-holders. The State Bank of India and the Life Insurance Corporation contributed 15 per cent of the capital each, and the rest was contributed by scheduled commercial banks which were not nationalized then. This kind of structure for a unit trust is not found anywhere else in the world. Again, unlike other unit trusts and mutual funds, the UTI was not created to earn profits. In the course of nearly four decades of its existence, it (the UTI) has succeeded phenomenally in achieving its objective and has the largest share anywhere in the world of the domestic mutual fund industry. The emergence of a foreign expert during the setting up of the UTI makes an interesting story. The announcement by the then Finance Minister that the Government of India was contemplating the establishment of a unit trust caught the eye of Mr. George Woods, the then President of the World Bank. Mr. Woods took a great deal of interest in the Indian financial system, as he was one of the principal architects of the ICI CI, in which his bank, First Boston Corporation Bank, had a sizeable shareholding. Mr. Woods offered, through Mr. B. K. Nehru, who was Indias Executive Director on the World Bank, the services of an expert. The Centre jumped at the offer, and asked the RBI to hold up the finalization of the unit trust proposals till the expert visited India. The only point Mr. Sullivan made was that the provision to limit the ownership of units to individuals might result in unnecessarily restricting the market for units. While making this point, he had in mind the practice in the US, where small pension funds are an important class of customers for the unit trusts. The Centre accepted the foreign experts suggestion, and the necessary amendments were made in the draft Bill.

True Brand Loyalty Essays - Brand Management, Brand Loyalty, Brand

True Brand Loyalty True Brand Loyalty Introduction A company's main question in relation to selling their products or services use do be: ,,How do I get people to buy my product?" Nowadays companies still greatly appreciate the answer to this question but they have also realized that getting customers is not the only thing they need to do. In today's rapidly moving world consumers don't stick with products for life. Advertisements and an increased feeling of independence have created consumers that will switch brands or products as soon as the feel the need to do so. What company's look for in this consumer environment is creating a so-called brand loyalty. This paper will explore the ways companies go about in creating this brand loyalty and it will investigate the circumstances and effects that come with it. It will start of by thoroughly explaining what brand loyalty exactly is. After that an overview of key success factors stimulating brand loyalty will be given and we will have a look at how these factors are influenced by different conditions. Examples will be provided. The relationships between brand loyalty and brand commitment and satisfaction will be explored. Finally a conclusion will be reached on how important brand loyalty is to companies and for what reasons. What is Brand Loyalty? Before one can give a definition of brand loyalty one first has to make the distinction between repeat purchasing behavior and brand loyalty. ?Repeat purchasing behavior is the actual rebuying of a brand.' So the behavioral aspect of this action. Brand loyalty also includes ?that behavior's antecedents'. This means the reason or fact occurring before the behavior. When talking about brand loyalty we can yet again make a distinction between two types: On the one hand we have spurious brand loyalty and on the other true brand loyalty. The former was defined by Bloemer and Kasper as the ?(1) biased (2) behavioral response (3) expressed over time (4) by some decision-making unit (5) with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of such brand, (6) which is a function of inertia.' The key word here is inertia meaning without commitment towards the brand. Their definition the latter, and the most important one in this paper, is exactly the same on the first five points but differs for the sixth adding ?is a function of psychological (decision making, evaluative) processes resulting in brand commitment.' In this definition brand commitment is the key word. In laymen's words true brand loyalty refers to consumers sticking with a brand out of feelings of commitment towards that brand. For instance, when you bought a tube of Prodent toothpaste and you found it ok, you will not have to spend any valuable time on looking for other toothpaste brands, because you are already familiar with it. However, for a more brand-loyalty-sensitive product class like beer, the probability that a consumer will stick to one brand (like Grolsch Beer) is much higher. In the next paragraph we will now look at the relation between brand commitment and brand loyalty. Brand commitment Brand loyalty is based on the amount of brand commitment. The amount of commitment is not fixed, but can be considered as a continuum. The amount of commitment is based on the type of brand satisfaction. In this article, two types of satisfaction are taken into account. For the sake of this paper, a distinction has to be made between manifest and latent brand satisfaction. First, what is brand satisfaction? Bloemer defines it as "the outcome of the subjective evaluation that the chosen alternative (the brand) meets or exceeds the expectations" (pp 314). Bloemer then makes a distinction between manifest and latent satisfaction. The distinction basically rests on the degree of elaboration. This in turn depends on the level of motivation and capacity that a certain consumer needs in order to evaluate the product. Manifest satisfaction is the result of a high degree of elaboration. Latent satisfaction is based on the fact that "the consumer is not fully aware of his/her satisfaction, because of a lack of motivation and/or ability of the consumer to evaluate his/her brand choice" (pp.315). The linkage between satisfaction and brand loyalty Many literatures have been written on the relation between brand loyalty and consumer satisfaction. This relation seems quite obvious. Later on we will deal with an article from Bloemer and De Ruyter (forthcoming) in which they introduce some moderating effects on this relation. But before we do this, we will describe factors that influence consumer satisfaction. In this respect Oliver (1981 1993) provides us with some interesting insights. Oliver describes the process of consumer (dis)satisfaction with help of