Lately, I have heard plenty about galaxies merging, and everyday, I hear new evidence of this perhaps having happened in the Universe's distant past. In recent years, Hubble has brought back pictures of this phenomena, and I for one am convinced that the Universe may in fact be slowly contracting in various parts while expanding in others according to the predictions of mainstream science supported red shift phenomena and other forms of evidence. The coming Andromeda - Milky Way collision is just one such prediction of a galaxy merger within our local group of galaxies, and it leaves me wondering if in fact such mergers are destined to occur in other parts of the Universe at around the same time or shortly afterwards in cosmic time. If so, is this indicative of the Big Crunch destined to compact our Universe into a sizeless, super-dense singularity? If so, can anyone provide me with the amount of time that the Universe may have left before such a cataclismic event.
2007-09-16 01:07:11 · 5 answers · asked by Iron Fart Warrior Mk. 2 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Those are local events and aren't indicative of a Big Crunch (which are current best observations predict will never happen).
2007-09-16 01:11:12 · answer #1 · answered by bestonnet_00 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Galaxy mergers are very common and have been observed for a hundred years. It did not take the Hubble Space Telescope to detect them for the first time; it took Edwin Hubble. These are events that occur on scales that are extremely small and universal expansion has no effect on them. Since these mergers happen on small scales, they are not of "Big Crunch" cosmological importance.
2007-09-16 02:02:44 · answer #2 · answered by ZikZak 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
the big crunch is just one of many ways the universe can end. all of these depend on a certain amount of mass in the universe, so if theres alot of mass the big crunch will happen, less mass the big rip. several things like that.
and its not really evidence of the big crunch, its more evidence of gravity. some galaxies have created 'super clusters' of galaxies, bound together by gravity. and eventually the massive gravity of any 2 relativly close galaxies would bring them together.
and the big crunch, if thats the fate of the universe, will happen in more than 100billion years.
2007-09-16 03:37:06 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Mergers are the gravtiational interactions of members of groups of galaxies. Whilst these mergers continue, we find that the galaxy is still expanding so no, it is not a sign of 'the big crunch'
Galaxies near to each other are gravitationally bound. Groups of galaxies are typically gravitationally bound in clusters and clusters are grouped into super clusters BUT these clusters are NOT thought to be gravitationally bound and these clusters of galaxies are moving away from each other (at least according to radial velocity measurements.
2007-09-16 01:27:05 · answer #4 · answered by The Lazy Astronomer 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Not in your lifetime and more than likely not until long after the human race has disappeared from the Face of the earth.
2007-09-16 01:14:38 · answer #5 · answered by Bemo 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋