The Astrology of Space - Matrix Software

The Astrology of Space
total mass of all dwarf spheroidal systems and
intergalactic clusters is negligible compared to the
mass of the galaxy or the mass of M31. 300 such
clusters with 3x10x5 the mass of the Sun each would
have only a total mass of 1x10x8 mass of the Sun,
which is less than 0.1% of the total mass of our
galaxy.
New candidates for membership in the local group
continue to be found. Some of these newly
discovered galaxies have been difficult to find even
though they are very close, because they occur in the
plane of our galaxy, and are thus hidden from view by
dust. Others are very dim and have gone unnoticed;
three such dwarf ellipticals were discovered in 1972.
Another was discovered in 1975 and it is so close to
our galaxy that it disrupts the otherwise regular spiral
arm structure.
In 1967 and 1968, two large galaxies were discovered
in the direction of Perseus, along the galactic plane.
The intervening dust had prevented their earlier
discovery and these objects first appeared on infrared
plates. These two objects, Mafeii I and II as they have
been called, are not much farther away from us than
is the Andromeda Galaxy. This puts them on the
outskirts of the Local Group, but with a high velocity
such that they could only be passing through our local
cluster of galaxies, rather than being a permanent
member.
Maffei I is a giant elliptical galaxy and Maffei II a spiral
galaxy. More recent distance estimates put the Maffei
galaxies some 5 megaparsecs away from us. They
are not at this point considered to be members of the
local group but belong to a nearby grouping of
galaxies called the Ursa Major-Camelopardalis Cloud.
Astronomer Gerard De Vaucouleurs states that the
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