The merging of two galaxies.
It's awesome in many ways. These unimaginably massive things collided in a chance happening and are now slowly but surely merging. Each Galactic Black Hole will eventually combine with the other forming a new more massive black hole and around it a new larger galaxy will be born.
But at the same time it's tragic, both galaxies are going through total chaos, all those stars and their planets are being thrown around off their orbits some are being smashed into each other, others will be flung out of the galaxy, others will be flung into and devoured by the black holes. Any and all life that was in those two galaxies will almost certainly die if they haven't already. It's a hard concept for us to comprehend. None of us will be around to witness it, but in several billion years that will most likely be what our galaxy will be experiencing, as our neighboring galaxy Andromeda is currently on a collision course with the Milky Way.
Things like this make me wish human beings as a whole were more motivated to reach for the stars. There is so many things that can and will happen that will utterly decimate us as we sit here on this one little rocky planet. From things like asteroids and comet impacts, to nearby supernovae radiating us, or our solar system passing too close to a random black hole and being drawn into it by freak chance, to the definite fact that our sun will die, to our galaxy colliding with andromeda. While it may be fated for life to die out eventually doesn't mean we should succumb to it. We spread ourselves out from this one planet, we ensure we will survive comet impacts..we advance and spread out beyond the solar system, we ensure we live on past our star the suns life, we colonize the galaxy and advance technology we may just be able to withstand colliding galaxies...
The merging of two galaxies.
lol am i the only one that's cared so far? o.0
i'm fascinated by astronomy...
you know thinking about this and your statement about any and all life is about to be obliterated or already is raised a question in my mind... (also considering our galaxy is in the works of having this happen far down the line) maybe life has already been going on billions and billions of years and this is just simply a cycle....
maybe one of the galaxies holds a planet much like ours, and harbors life much like ours...
kinda weird to think about really...
The merging of two galaxies.
Yeah it's totally trippy to look at those individual specks of light in that photo and contemplate that circling around it could be planet(s) full of life and very likely possible.
Another thing to keep in mind to when looking at that photo is you are highly likely looking back many millions to billions of years. While those two galaxies are only starting to combine from our perspective in reality they have long since combined. There could be new life already thriving there in the new bigger galaxy.
The merging of two galaxies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melkane
Yeah it's totally trippy to look at those individual specks of light in that photo and contemplate that circling around it could be planet(s) full of life and very likely possible.
Another thing to keep in mind to when looking at that photo is you are highly likely looking back many millions to billions of years. While those two galaxies are only starting to combine from our perspective in reality they have long since combined. There could be new life already thriving there in the new bigger galaxy.
that's one of the things that's always fascinated me about space... it takes sooooooooooooooooooo long for the visuals to reach us... i mean.... god... i still get butterflies in my stomach from it... cuz that shows us how damn big the universe is...
there isn't a word in the english language that can really quite capture just how big that really is....
The merging of two galaxies.
wow. after readin the post about imagining the planets that could be circling each speck of light (a star) i realized exactly how immense this is and i got butterflies in my stomach. i love astronomy. its so exciting for some reason.
The merging of two galaxies.
Here's a simulation:
YouTube - Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy collision simulation
Surprised not more people are interested, it completely fascinates myself does astronomy.
