Pages

Monday, June 18, 2012

Collision of Galaxies



NASA has released a photo of galaxies NGC 3314 "colliding."  In reality, the galaxies are not colliding.  They seem to be uniting but are light years apart moving in the opposite direction of each other.

Galaxies are moving throughout space.  They sometimes collide with each other and become a new galaxy.  Not much is known regarding colliding galaxies due to the fact that they take a long long long time to happen and we don't have the life span to see them occur in real time.

Our own galaxy, the "Milky Way" is not safe from collision.  We are destined for one with the galaxy Andromeda which is speeding in our direction very quickly (in light year terms).  This will not happen until 4 billion years for now, so relax. :)

In any event, if life still exists on Earth by then, it will not be in much danger.  Human beings in the future will notice Andromeda "engulf" the skyline.  Any asteroids, comets, moons or planets that Andromeda may possess will most likely be repelled by the gravity of our Sun and the larger outer planets.  

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/galaxies-collide-hubble-telescope-photo_n_1597066.html?ref=topbar

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for reading and for your comment. All comments are subject to approval. They must be free of vulgarity, ad hominem and must be relevant to the blog posting subject matter.