For comparison, James Blish's The Triumph Of Time states that:
each group of galaxies revolves in spiral arms around a common center of density;
one such group, the "inner metagalaxy," comprises about fifty galaxies, including the Milky Way and the Andromeda;
the metagalaxies form spiral arms curving back towards the cosmic center where the monobloc exploded;
tenuous bridges of stars, discovered in 1953, connect the galaxies like umbilical cords.
Thus, Blish presents a completely different account of stars between galaxies. He said in conversation that he hoped that a story could be written about those star bridges although intergalactic travel by one of the bridges would be no faster than by direct transit across intergalactic space.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The problem is, however, not all galaxies have spiral arms. So I fear James Blish erred here.
Sean
Sean,
I think his cosmology is wrong. I have never seen it anywhere else. This makes THE TRIUMPH OF TIME quaint.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! And I fear the same is true of some of the older works of Poul Anderson. The example I have in mind being TWILIGHT WORLD, because of his mistaken, 1940's conception of how nuclear weapons would work and likely effects on human genes.
Sean
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