Is the milkey way galaxy about to crash in to another galaxy?
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answers:
William say: Crash is the worst term, misleading. Absorb and merge is more accurate. There are no catastrophic collisions, no explosions, it is common for galaxies to merge. In fact, the Milky Way has evidence of past galactic mergers.
Galactic mergers are a natural and harmless part of the life cycle of the Universe. Our own existence may even be a product of it.
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Jeffrey K say: Yes. It will crash into the Andromeda galaxy. I don't know if "about to" is the right word because it won't happen for billions of years. I don't know if "crash" is the right word because nothing will hit anything.
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Raymond say: There are always dwarf galaxies being "swallowed" by our Galaxy (a.k.a. the Milky Way galaxy).
Because they are smaller, they crash into us (not the other way around -- a car does not crash its windshield against a bug).
However, in 3 billion years or so (3,000 million), the Andromeda galaxy and our own Galaxy will try to occupy the same place. When two cars try that, they "crash" with lots of damage, noise and sudden pain to occupants.
For galaxies, the collision takes a few million years. There is so much space between each star that actual collisions between stars will be quite rare. The gas-and-dust clouds - there are many in each galaxy - cannot avoid each other and the compression will cause the sudden birth of many new stars.
Also, the tidal effect of one galaxy on the other may cause streams of stars to be flung away from their own galaxy (the streams are called antennae, the plural of antenna). The planets that would be around these stars would simply go along for the ride. If there are any people on thiese planets, they would not notice the difference over a normal lifetime (the process takes hundreds of thousands of years).
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YKhan say: Yup, in about 4 or 5 billion years. By that point, the Sun will be ready to explode too, quite coincidentally.
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Ronald 7 say: In Billions of years from now, Andromeda will begin merging with the Milky Way
It wont happen with a sudden bang though
There is so vast a distance between all stars they should miss each other
What a vision that would be if someone was there to see it
Imagine the Speed of thought and what it could do
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aladdinwa say: Yes, in about 2 million years.
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Ageof say: Just another doomsday talk. When will they have enough? After Y2k and now this you'd think they'd have had enough
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Chris say: New evidence shows that the Large Magellanic Cloud, a Dwarf Galaxy in orbit around the Milky Way will fall into the MW instead of drifting away. It is "about to" only in cosmological timescales, roughly a Billion (with a B, 1,000,000,000) years from now. That's a relatively short time-span at those scales, but obviously huge in the human scale.
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Donut Tim say: If by "about" you mean within the next few billion years then yes.
The Milky Way has merged with many other galaxies in the past.
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Michael say: In about four billion years, the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.
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oneofmagi@rocketmail.com say: Yes, when we will have been in tomb.
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Snowwie888 say: Recently it has been announced that the Large Magellanic cloud will collide with the Milky Way first, and the possibility exists our solar system can be ejected from the Milky Way. This is due to happen in about 2 billion years. After that, it is not sure if the Milky Way will still collide with Andromeda since the collision with the Large Magellanic cloud might take it of it's original course. The Milky Way will gobble up the Large Magellanic cloud and increase in mass significantly, which means a probably collision with Andromeda can be sooner than previous thought.
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Dan say: Yes, the govt is keeping this a secret from us so as to avoid upsetting the public for the upcoming apocalypse
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Ricki say: About? Like in the next 10 or 1000 years? No
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james say: Yes. In just a few days. On the forever & ever time clock.
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The original Peter G say: not in your lifetime.
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Who say: in a few billion years - yes
but "crash" is the wrong word
Its very likely one of the galaxies will pass right through the other with very little "crashing"
more likely is that stars (and planets associated with it) in galaxy A will transfer and become part of galaxy B - and vice versa- So when its all over the 2 galaxies at the end will be different from the 2 galaxies at the start
(the gaps between stars in a galaxy are huge compared to the sizes of the stars themselves)
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Bill-M say: Yes. the other Galaxy is Andromeda and it will happen in about 4 Billion years.
Go back to sleep, nothing to worry about.
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Tom S say: About to, no.
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poldi2 say: The Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy will collide in about 4 billion years. But that collision is not 2 solid objects hitting like 2 cars on the highway. Both galaxies are mostly empty space, so what is colliding is the gas between the stars and the gravititational fields.
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bob f say: In a couple billion years, I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.
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duke_of_urls say: It is not about to happen. It will be a very very long time from now.
Current prediction is that it will happen in a sagan of years.
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Acetek say: the large Magellanic cloud which is only visible in the southern hemisphere is a dwarf galaxy. it was just recently determined that it will MERGE with the Milky Way in about 2 billion years. However, the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with the Milky Way and MERGE into one galaxy in about 4.5 billion years. Nothing to worry about here.
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