Milky Way Galaxy Doomed: Collision with Andromeda Pending
Explanation:
Will our Milky Way Galaxy collide one day with its larger neighbor, the Andromeda
Galaxy?
Most likely, yes.
Careful plotting of slight displacements of M31's stars
relative to background galaxies on recent
Hubble Space Telescope images indicate that the center
of M31
could be on a direct
collision course with the center of our home
galaxy.
Still, the errors in sideways velocity appear sufficiently large to admit a
good chance that the central parts of the two galaxies will miss, slightly,
but will become
close enough for their outer halos to become gravitationally
entangled.
Once that happens, the two galaxies will become bound,
dance around, and
eventually merge
to
become one large
elliptical galaxy --
over the next few billion years.
Pictured here is a combination of images depicting
the sky of a world (Earth?) in the distant future when the outer parts of each galaxy
begin to collide.
The exact future of our Milky Way and the entire surrounding
Local Group of Galaxies
is likely to remain an active
topic of research for years to come.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
