The universe is constantly expanding, space objects are gradually moving away from us, but not all. Scientists have established the approach of the huge Andromeda galaxy to our Milky Way at a speed of 120 km / s. Collision galaxy projects have already been drawn up.
The Milky Way is our home
The Milky Way Galaxy is our homeland. She is huge, beautiful: she can be seen with the naked eye in a clear night sky. It is presented in the form of a white strip spreading across the sky.
According to the latest data, the diameter of our galaxy is about 130,000 light years. It contains about three hundred billion planets, stars and other celestial bodies. Our solar system is located at a distance of 28 thousand light years from the center of the galaxy, on a spiral concentration of gas and dust - the sleeve of Orion.
Our galaxy has supars — small galaxies orbiting a giant in their own orbit, independently of other parts of the Milky Way. According to observations, in billions of years, the Milky Way will absorb the small galaxies of the Big and Small Magellanic Cloud, and after a while Andromeda itself will absorb it.
Andromeda and the Milky Way
Scientists have confirmed that there will be a collision of the Andromeda galaxies and the Milky Way. These are the two largest systems, which are located at a distance of about 2.5 million light years from each other. The Andromeda Galaxy is in the constellation of the same name. She can be considered the big brother of the Milky Way.
Andromeda contains a trillion stars (there are about three hundred billion in the Milky Way), the diameter of the galaxy is about 200,000 light years, and ours is half as much.
Some scientists claim that our galaxy and Andromeda are very similar. Both the Milky Way and Andromeda are able to combine other smaller galaxies, but with the expansion of the Universe, the galaxies diverge from each other. But these two giants are moving towards each other. The speed of movement is, according to various estimates, from 120 to 200 kilometers per second. As a result of this, scientists concluded that a collision of galaxies will occur. This event will happen in a couple of billion years.
Collision scientists
The collision of galaxies is shown in a video from the television studio of Roscosmos. According to scientists, space giants should merge into a single whole. If at the time of the collision of galaxies the Earth will be inhabited by people, they will be able to sense and see this event. According to scientists, the solar system can be thrown further from our sleeve of the Milky Way. The planet will fly through a mess of stars, comets, dust.
What will happen in a collision?
If a collision of the Milky Way galaxies and Andromeda occurs, this will entail the inevitable death of many cosmic bodies: a number of stars will be completely destroyed, some will be ejected from galaxies, some will be absorbed by black holes.
The spiral structure of objects will be completely broken, and a new, giant elliptical galaxy will appear in their place. This process is the norm for the evolution of galaxies. Scientists have known for more than one year that the objects are approaching each other. But only now they have done a simulation of the collision of two galaxies.
Space evolution
There are galaxies in the universe in orbits with a common center of mass. In such systems, there is a central giant galaxy and several satellite objects. During evolution, if the motion of smaller galaxies does not coincide in orbits, then all of them begin to rotate around this center. If the orbits of the galaxies are the same, then they will be combined into one large system, while a smaller object will be torn apart. Astronomers often observe such collisions. It is believed that Andromeda also encountered a smaller galaxy in the distant past. Our system also consumed small galaxies.
Clash
The largest collision of galaxies will not happen soon. And this event is not entirely correct to call a collision. This event is more suited to the term “association”. Since discharged interstellar media are located in galaxies, planets and stars are unlikely to collide with each other. Two giants will unite, overlapping each other.
Change in flight speed
As already mentioned, scientists have long been aware of the approach of two giant galaxies. Until some time, astronomers could not say with accuracy whether there would be a powerful collision of galaxies or whether they would disperse before they created a mathematical model.
At this stage, there is a variant of the radial velocity change of Andromeda relative to the Milky Way by measuring it using the Doppler shift of the spectral lines from the stars of the galaxy, but it will not be possible to measure the transverse velocity. So far, astronomers have been able to determine the approximate speed of movement of galaxies. According to some assumptions, the halo will definitely collide, but the disks themselves may not touch each other. However, other scientists of the world think completely differently.
When will face
During the approach of galaxies, their nuclei will spin around each other. During this event, stellar disks scatter along the sides of the nuclei. Approximation modeling has shown that this event will occur in about two billion light-years.
During the explosion, our solar system will be thrown out of the new galaxy by about thirty thousand light-years. It is likely that it will move farther from the middle of the galaxies, but this chance is extremely low - about 0.1%.
During the simulation, astronomers had the opportunity to determine the probability of collision of our galaxy with other systems. As a result of observations, it turned out that the Milky Way could collide with M33 (probability - 9%).
Will there be a collision?
Andromeda contains about a billion different celestial bodies: planets and stars, and the Milky Way - only a few hundred billion. According to astronomers, the collision of the Earth and the Sun with other planets and stars is an unlikely event. Most likely, all celestial bodies will be ejected by a blast wave at the merger of the black holes of galaxies.
After this event, other constellations will sparkle in the sky of the Earth, and maybe even another satellite will join it.
When galaxies merge, there is usually no collision of stars due to too much distance between them. However, there is gas between them that can heat up and cause the birth of new stars. The dust and gas of interstellar space can be absorbed by existing stars, because of which their weight and size will be changed: supernova celestial bodies will arise.
As long as two giant objects reach each other, there will be little gas in their arms: during movement, all gaseous masses will turn into stars or settle on old bodies. Therefore, no giant explosion will occur, but it will not be smooth.
Merge model
The first approach of Andromeda to the Milky Way was noticed in 1920 by Edwin Hubble. He appreciated the outgoing spectrographic light from Andromeda and made a sensational discovery: the galaxy is moving toward us.
In 2012, scientists made rough estimates of the approach speed. The data obtained allowed us to calculate the date of the collision of the titans.
Not so long ago, scientists created a model for a future collision. Thomas Cox and Abraham Loeb built a mathematical model that allowed us to determine the collision process and see the fate of our native solar system, the Earth.