Future Collision With The Milky Way
The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at about 100 to 140 kilometres per second (62 to 87 mi/s) (400 lightyears every million years), making it one of the few blueshifted galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are thus expected to collide in about 4.5 billion years, although the details are uncertain since Andromeda's tangential velocity with respect to the Milky Way is known to only within about a factor of two. A likely outcome of the collision is that the galaxies will merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy. Such events are frequent among the galaxies in galaxy groups. The fate of the Earth and the Solar System in the event of a collision are currently unknown. If the galaxies do not merge, there is a small chance that the Solar System could be ejected from the Milky Way or join M31.
Read more about this topic: Andromeda Galaxy
Famous quotes containing the words milky way, future, collision and/or milky:
“The Milky Way perhaps
Was woman’s way of life.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon—destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroy us. A nation that doesn’t read much doesn’t know much. And a nation that doesn’t know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth...The challenge, therefore, is to convince future generations of children that carrying a book is more rewarding than carrying guns.”
—Jim Trelease (20th century)
“When the wind carries a cry which is meaningful to human ears, it is simpler to believe the wind shares with us some part of the emotion of Being than that the mysteries of a hurricane’s rising murmur reduce to no more than the random collision of insensate molecules.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The Milky Way perhaps
Was woman’s way of life.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)