We’ve all heard about crop circles that appear in the middle of corn or wheat fields. But here is a little known phenomenon — ice circles! These perfectly circular formations have been recorded for some time now, usually appearing on rivers or small ponds, but occasionally also in the calm ocean waters on enoumous scales. We have no idea how they form, if they are natural or perhaps related to the same phenomenon as the crop circles. Here are a few images we have received. Your comments are welcome. Perhaps you can colve this mystery!
ice circle
This circle appeared overnight in a small irrigation ditch in Delta, Ontario. Notice the appearance of a groove outlining the formation.
The above two photos were taken of the same circular formation as it drifted down a river in Amasa, Michigan in 2006. Notice it is surrounded by liquid water. The edges look as if they were also carved but the origin of this formation is still a mystery.
The above photo is from Norwalk, Connecticut in 2003. The formation was seen in a park. The surrounding ice was too thin for anyone to have walked on it and made the circle.
The formation above [left] is typical of smaller circles often seen on streams. In the detail photo [right] of the same circle we see how the edges appear to have been cut, yet no other signs or tracks nearby shed light on how this was done.
These photos show a circle located in Northeast Utah. Again, it appears to have been cut but the fragile ice surrounding it shows no signs of human tracks.
pic
John Dubinski (University of Toronto)
We live in the Milky Way Galaxy, a collection of gas, dust, and hundreds of billions of stars. About two million light years (20 billion billion kilometers) away lies the Andromeda Galaxy, a spiral galaxy similar in size and shape to our Milky Way. Current measurements suggest that, in about three billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies may collide. What will happen? The stars in the galaxies, our Sun included, will probably not hit each other, but the galaxies’ mutual gravity will probably pull, twist, and distort them until, about a billion years later, a new elliptical-shaped galaxy is born.
Gravity and tides at work
This movie shows a supercomputer simulation of one possible collision scenario between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Each spiral galaxy is represented by a disk of stars surrounded by a spherical “dark matter” halo. The simulation contains over 100,000,000 virtual particles. The Milky Way is shown face-on and is initially at the bottom of the frame while Andromeda moves from the top of the frame down and is tilted from this perspective. The movie’s field of view is about one million light years (10 billion billion kilometers) across, and the total elapsed time of the movie is about 1 billion years. The complex patterns and structures created during the collisions are caused by tides, the same process that works on Earth’s oceans. The gravitational pull of the each galaxy’s stars and dark matter twist, tear, and distort their original disk-like structures, leaving a single elliptical galaxy and lots of tidal debris after all is said and done.
