MILKY WAY AND ANDROMEDA GALAXIES SET TO COLLIDE IN 4 BILLION YEARS
Some of us gets a huge sense of calmness when gazing up at the night sky. However, as they say ‘looks can be deceiving. Al though the galaxy might appear soothing, the Milky Way is actually hurtling through the universe at an astonishing 1.3 million miles per hour.
It was also discovered that the beautiful Milky Way is on a crash course with the Andromeda Galaxy. The two spiral galaxies are 2.5 million light years apart, but that doesn’t seem to last forever.
The Andromeda Galaxy is much larger than our beloved Milky Way, and is moving at 68 miles per second closer to us. However, on the positive side, given the distance between these galaxies it will take up to 4 billion years for these two star galaxies to collide. It is also found that the two galaxies will transform into a new galaxy in about 6 billion years. The new galaxy, which is sometimes called Milkomeda or Milkdromeda, will also see the merger of the supermassive black holes which reside at the center of the Milky Way and Andromeda.
The thought of such collision might be a bit scary, however scientists pointed out that due to the distance between stars it is unlikely that individual stars will collide with no effect on our solar system.
Researchers have explained that it might be unlikely for humans to see this spectacular light show. What is even more incredible about the discovery of the Andromeda-Milky Way Collision, is that we've known about it for hundreds of years. In fact, in the early 1900s the astronomer Vesto Slipher made the prediction. And since that time, many other astronomers have created simulations to see if these galaxies would meet head-on or simply skirt past each other.
In 2012, data from the Hubble Telescope confirmed that there would definitely be a collision.
Researchers also explained that we should remember that these types of collisions are perfectly normal and expected. In fact, the Milky Way already lived through a collision about 10 billion years ago and larger galaxies often absorb smaller galaxies in their orbit.
We might not be around to see the formation of Milkomeda, but we can only imagine the incredible view.