April 16, 2024
The approaching intergalactic collision!  See what will happen to the Earth

The approaching intergalactic collision! See what will happen to the Earth

inside breadth beingThere is an infinite number of stars and celestial bodies. These structures revolve around solar systems and galaxy systems. We, here on Earth, orbit the solar system, which in turn is part of the group of systems that orbit Earth. Milky Wayour galaxy.

Currently, we have a neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, which can be seen with the naked eye at better resolution only in the Northern Hemisphere; And in the southern hemisphere, only at a certain time of the year, between October and December, shortly after sunset. Andromeda It is now about 2.5 million light-years away from us.

All this difference in distance will diminish, and in about four or five billion years both galaxies will collide. The event on a celestial scale must cause a lot of commotion in the sky, because the stars will move in different ways as the clusters approach. However, the event must not be a destroy-in state being.

Image: NASA. ESA; A. Feild and R. van der Marel, STScI/Reproduction

The image above is a projection of what the sky would look like when the galaxies were close and colliding.

Although it is filled with many stars and planetary systems, much of the universe is made up of dust and gases in empty spaces, which should favor billions of stars as they collide.

scheduled event

The collision of galaxies is a programmed event, because the trajectory of their movement generates a mutual attraction between them. Doctor of Cosmology and Professor at the Federal Institute of Maranhao (IFMA), Rafael Crist Lopez, explained why this galactic event occurred.

Andromeda has about 1 trillion stars, and our galaxy has nearly 200 billion. How are the two most massive systems in the Local Group [composto por 54 galáxias]they experience mutual attraction, that is, one attracts the other.

This phenomenon was verified for the first time in 2012, by Hubble telescope, during a survey conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), when observing the movement of Andromeda. Recently, a discovery involving galaxies may indicate that a merger of the two may have already occurred, as some of the “halos” may have touched.

The gaseous atmospheres that give rise to stars, the clumps of gases in space and voids in the space of the universe are known as halos. these distances between galaxies It may already be in contact, which could indicate a lengthy merger process.

The collision should form a new galaxy, in which part of the two will be preserved with their empty spaces. However, many systems and celestial bodies will still collide, which is not a serious problem on planet Earth and probably never will be.

This is because, if we can get the planet to live all these billions of years with humans as we know it, we still have to worry about the imminent death of the Sun, which, after consuming all the helium, will expand into a giant red ball and consume a land and the nearest planets.

Before we worry about these events, we have to worry about how we will live the next 100 years with global warming. An event more alarming and imminent than any galactic phenomenon.