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In about 3 billion year Andromeda galaxy will collide with our MilkyWay.

Of course, i doubt whether humans will survive until then, but however i need to know whether what kind of effect it will have on Earth?

Is there a chance for it to be safe as there is a lot of empty space between the two galaxies?

2007-02-04 01:46:57 · 6 answers · asked by sh 1 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

6 answers

The worst it will do to Earth is provide a spectacular light-show as the enormous spiral of the Andromeda Galaxy closes in to its inevitable collision with the Milky Way. The light-show will only get more spectacular as the gravitational interactions between the two colliding galaxies disturbs the clouds of dust and gas each of them carries, prompting a spectacular burst of star formation. Earth's chances of absorbing an extinction-causing dose of radiation from a supernova would, consequently, be much higher. There is also a chance that the Sun will be ejected from the galaxy into intergalactic space, due to the gravitational interactions between the two galaxies. The effect on Earth, in that case, is trivial.

The odds of the Sun actually colliding with another star are extremely, extremely low, as are the odds of the Sun passing close enough to another star for the Earth to be ejected into interstellar space. The odds will be much higher for a star passing close enough to disturb the Oort Cloud, sending a shower of new comets towards Earth.

To put it into perspective, imagine you had a scale model where the Sun was the size of a basketball. Earth would be a black-eyed pea sitting over 100 feet away. The Alpha Centauri star system would be two basketballs and a golf-ball placed 5,503 MILES away. Even in the densely packed central regions of our galaxy, stars on our scale model would be basketballs placed twenty-five miles apart. While that is close, when we construct our next scale model, you'll see that it's actually very, very far away.

If we were to make the entire Milky Way the size of a basketball, the Andromeda Galaxy would be another basketball sitting just twenty-three feet away. The Milky Way's distance to the mammoth Virgo Cluster, in this model, is just six-hundred feet away. The density of galaxies is, then, much greater than that of stars in the galaxy. So while we'd expect galactic collisions to be fairly common, it is much like two clouds of smoke passing through one another. The individual smoke particles would be much too small, and much too far apart to directly collide.

2007-02-04 02:49:54 · answer #1 · answered by Sam D 3 · 0 0

Galaxies can pass through each other and often do. This occurs below a specific density, at the edges. Nearer to the cores, they will pull eacher together. Then, they either orbit each other or combine.
If the galaxy passes through the other there can be local collisions, though. But, since these two galaxies are not terribly dense, especially as far out as Earth's sun is on a spiral arm, our system will be fairly safe.

2007-02-04 01:55:00 · answer #2 · answered by Matthew P 4 · 0 0

Galaxies don't collide like cars do. Since there is so much space between the stars, they mostly pass through each other but both do get distorted by gravitational effects.

2007-02-04 01:53:54 · answer #3 · answered by Gene 7 · 0 0

Colliding galaxies have been observed. They merge rather than collide and the probability is that in such mergings there are no collisions between stars, planets or other bodies. There is just too much space between them.

2007-02-04 01:55:19 · answer #4 · answered by tentofield 7 · 0 0

It's most likely that by that time the Sun will have turned into a Red Giant, so Earth would all ready be destroyed by the suns greatness.

2007-02-04 01:51:54 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

What you ought to undergo in ideas is that even even with the actuality that a galaxy is a denser cluster of count number than the open area between galaxies, maximum of a galaxy remains open area. certain, some stars will in all likelihood collide, notwithstanding it is now unlikely to be some crash-fest the position stars are bashing in to at least one yet another left and precise. what is going to ensue is that issues are going to get twisted round of their paths via new gravitational forces they are going to ought to cope with. As one huge call comes in the route of the different, they could have a gravitational pull on one yet another, yet understand that the momentum from their unique trajectory isn't canceled out. the way their gravity pulls at one yet another would deliver them on a direction that, in essence, flings them out of the "confines" of the galaxy. Now, this flinging ought to in all likelihood take it sluggish, in all likelihood tens of millions of years, notwithstanding the relative result with reference to at least something else of the action of the universe is "flinging". once the vast majority of the mass of the galaxies has collided, the pull of gravity via each and every of the mass and the spin of the black hollow(s) contained in the middle will gradually even out the trajectory of each and every thing right into a in many situations disc structure. Make sense now?

2016-11-02 07:07:56 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

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