NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-On Collision

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spf1007

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NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-On Collision:

NASA astronomers announced Thursday they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.
The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. It is likely the sun will be flung into a new region of our galaxy, but our Earth and solar system are in no danger of being destroyed."Our findings are statistically consistent with a head-on collision between the Andromeda galaxy and our Milky Way galaxy," said Roeland van der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.
The solution came through painstaking NASA Hubble Space Telescope measurements of the motion of Andromeda, which also is known as M31. The galaxy is now 2.5 million light-years away, but it is inexorably falling toward the Milky Way under the mutual pull of gravity between the two galaxies and the invisible dark matter that surrounds them both.

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In four billion years time .... they going to feel really stupid if they wrong ... oh wait :whistle:
 
Sorry to be a prude, but this is really old news. This was known for many years already.

Anyway, I suppose those who didn't know, now do.
 
The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. It is likely the sun will be flung into a new region of our galaxy, but our Earth and solar system are in no danger of being destroyed.
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That makes absolutely no sense. How can the sun be flung into another region yet our solar system won't be impacted?
 
mercurial said:
That makes absolutely no sense. How can the sun be flung into another region yet our solar system won't be impacted?
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I think you are looking at the word "flung" too literally... Its not going to be like a hammer throw. The gravity of our sun will keep our planets in check however the position or our solar system relative to its current position in the galaxy will change.
 
Scooby_Doo said:
I think you are looking at the word "flung" too literally... Its not going to be like a hammer throw. The gravity of our sun will keep our planets in check however the position or our solar system relative to its current position in the galaxy will change.
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I don't know how they can assert that with such positivity. I think the Andromeda galaxy is going to rip ours apart. Our solar system will no longer exist. Our planets might even orbit other stars to form new solar systems.
 
mercurial said:
I don't know how they can assert that with such positivity. I think the Andromeda galaxy is going to rip ours apart. Our solar system will no longer exist. Our planets might even orbit other stars to form new solar systems.
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It won't rip ours apart, they'll go though a series of back and forth collisions before eventually becoming one big galaxy, with several stars being flung out into space of course.

They probably can assert this because of computer simulations and analysing the behaviour of other galactic collisions. The really amazing thing is that none of the stars will collide with each other. Remember individual stars can be billions of kilometres or even light years apart, which is nowhere near enough for them to strip away planets from other stars.
 
Knyro said:
They probably can because of computer simulations and analysing the behaviour of other galactic collisions. The really amazing thing is that none of the stars will collide with each other. Remember individual stars can be billions of kilometres or even light years apart, which is nowhere near enough for them to strip away planets from other stars.
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True. I guess I'm struggling to imagine how a galaxy twice the size (or mass... not sure) of ours will not cause damage to our solar system.
 
The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now.
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I like to believe that I'm forward thinking and all, but I really find it hard to care about (or even comprehend) something that's only going to happen in 4 billion years. Guess that's why I never really got into astronomy. :)
 
I'm guessing that the human race will probably be extinct by then.
 
mercurial said:
Sorry to be a prude, but this is really old news. This was known for many years already.

Anyway, I suppose those who didn't know, now do.
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Yep, I've watched shows over 10 years ago that mentioned this collision.

They said that although the galaxies will merge, none of the stars will actually collide. There's too much empty space since stars are so far apart.
 
mercurial said:
Sorry to be a prude, but this is really old news. This was known for many years already.

Anyway, I suppose those who didn't know, now do.
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+1

We played with a comp model of the collision back in 2004. In the all the test runs we did (Over 4000) the earth was safe, but man it would have made for a great light show.

Pity I was not born during that time.

SaiyanZ said:
Yep, I've watched shows over 10 years ago that mentioned this collision.

They said that although the galaxies will merge, none of the stars will actually collide. There's too much empty space since stars are so far apart.
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No direct collisions no, but man can the extra gravity stuff with things like weather and H2O, anyway see above on comp models.
 
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I don't get the excitement..
This is like... let's say Nicodeamus...telling me that there's this guy named Dennis at this moment sitting in Starbucks, Cottonwood. He finished his Chicken santa fe Panini and just ordered a coffee ice cream. So bloody what???
 
Ekstasis said:
I don't get the excitement..
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Different things excite different people. Some people get excited about the future and things that are going to happen whilst others get excited about things in the past that could not possibly happen. Future fact vs past fiction.
 
SaiyanZ said:
Different things excite different people. Some people get excited about the future and things that are going to happen whilst others get excited about things in the past that could not possibly happen. Future fact vs past fiction.
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4 BILLION years in the future??? And you're getting excited? :confused:

anyway, each to their own I guess :)
 
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