The nearest spiral galaxy to us known as ‘Andromeda’ or ‘Messier 31’ about 2.2 million light-years away is on its way to collide with our Milkyway galaxy in about 4.5 billion years from now. The sky that we are used to seeing at night is about to get spectacular!
The way scientists predict this event in the distant future is by observing the movement of stars in Andromeda with respect to the galaxies in the background using Hubble Space Telescope. The blueshift in the electromagnetic spectrum of the incoming light waves from M31 suggests that the stars emitting the light are approaching us with a speed of about 110 km/s. Why won’t it just fly past Milkyway and not collide into it? Because the tangential velocities of the stars are measured and found to be extremely small compared to the speed of approach. So it is sure to bump into us. Time to buckle up as we enter into a galactic roller coaster.
Representations of the galaxies seem to be a very dense spiral collection of stars but in reality, the interstellar spaces are mostly empty. It is safe to assume that our solar system at the time of collision would remain intact. Alien solar systems would fly past solar systems in our galaxy as the core of M31 and Milkyway come closer and closer. Both the galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their centers. The new center of ‘Milkdromeda’ galaxy will be formed by these two supermassive black holes merging into one and sending out ripples across the fabric of space and time. A great time to detect Gravitational Waves coming from not too far! The orbit of our solar system around the center of the Milkyway would be distorted and we would now have a new center in a bigger galaxy. If humans are still here on Earth during this event, the sky would be really different but would mostly look the same for human generations. Because our timescale is very very tiny compared to the timescales of galaxies in the universe.
What is interstellar space?
Our Sun creates a flow of particles (solar winds) and generates a magnetic field around it known as the heliosphere. The region outside, where there is no material and magnetic field from the Sun.
When this collision is underway, I wonder if we can launch🚀 ourselves into an alien solar system passing nearby. And land on an alien habitable planet (Being ultra optimistic to find one😇).
😍👍
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