When Galaxies Collide

[Ultra]

When Galaxies Collide, our Solar System Will Go for a Ride

Cambridge, MA - For decades, astronomers have known that the Milky Way galaxy is on a collision course with the neighboring Andromeda spiral galaxy. What was unknown until now: the fate of the Sun and our solar system in that melee. New calculations by theorists T.J. Cox and Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) show that the Sun and its planets will be exiled to the outer reaches of the merged galaxy. Moreover, the collision will take place within the Sun's lifetime, before it becomes a burned-out white dwarf star.

"You could say that we're being sent to a retirement home in the country," said Cox. "We're living in the suburbs of the Milky Way right now, but we're likely to move much farther out after the coming cosmic smash-up."

Computer simulations by Cox and Loeb show that big changes are coming in only 2 billion years, when the Milky Way and Andromeda experience their first close pass. A viewer on Earth would see the night sky evolve from a strip of stars (the Milky Way seen edge-on) to a muddled mess as Andromeda's powerful pull flings stars from their stately orbits.

At that time, the Sun will still be a hydrogen-burning main-sequence star, although it will have brightened and heated enough to boil the oceans from the Earth.

The two galaxies will swing around each other a couple of times, intermingling their stars as gravitational forces stir them together.

About 5 billion years from now, Andromeda and the Milky Way will have completely combined to form a single, football-shaped elliptical galaxy. The Sun will be an aging star nearing the red giant phase and the end of its lifetime. It and the solar system likely will reside 100,000 light-years from the center of the new galaxy -- 4 times further than the current 25,000 light-year distance.

Any descendants of humans observing the future sky will experience a very different view. The strip of Milky Way will be gone, replaced by a huge bulge of billions of stars. Future scientists may look back on today's research as the first prediction of things to come.

"This is the first paper in my publication record that has a chance of being cited five billion years from now," joked Loeb.

The paper describing this research has been submitted for publication to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. It is available online at http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tcox/localgroup/ and http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1170.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

For more information, contact:

David A. Aguilar
Director of Public Affairs
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu

Christine Pulliam
Public Affairs Specialist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu

[GRAYWOLF]

I thought this was going to be about a Ford-Ford crash!

I guess we can forget about "global warming" the sun is going to do us in, anyway!

[Otto Puzzell]

Worlds are colliding, Jerry......worlds are colliding!

[Tifosi]

I thought this was going to be about a Ford-Ford crash!

I guess we can forget about "global warming" the sun is going to do us in, anyway!

So, I guess we'd better FOCUS on the FUSION that the FUTURA is going to ESCORT into our lives...


Dan, always PROBE-ing the limits that a good pun  can be taken to...no mention of MERCURYs or COMETS though...

[Ultra]

no mention of MERCURYs or COMETS though...

Throwing everything out of Contour.   

I have the Prefect solution!   

Let's have a Fiesta!   

[GRAYWOLF]

Five Hundred possible excuses to be a Crusader or Marauder and go on Discovery Excursions and Expeditions to help you Escape your mundane realities and Explore alternatives with your Falcon or Cougar named Astro, like searching for Meteors and Zodiac constellations (like Taurus, Orion and Scorpio) or visiting a Mustang Ranchero and ride a bucking Pinto Bronco. Maybe you can Aspire to be a Popular Transcontinental Freestyle Maverick Land Rover living on the Edge and go see Victoria's Crown or slap down some Villagers like the Grand Marquis de Sade and his Country Squire in Versailles! Maybe get a Woody drinking Thunderbird in the Sierra Mountains Territory or Continental Divide with a local Mountaineer and some Navajos, around Ten or Ten-Ten. Buy a Sable coat in Monterrey or some Topaz jewelry in Montego Bay.

Whatever you do, be sure to take along a good Navigator and Mariner or Aviator, depending on how you choose to travel, whether it be to Milan or the Isle of Capri. All the while, try to TH!NK what you would tell a Messenger as your last words!

[GRAYWOLF]

A little too over the top?

[Boxer2500]

I think you need to get a hobby.

[GRAYWOLF]

Yeah, probably!!!

[trobinett]

Five Hundred possible excuses to be a Crusader or Marauder and go on Discovery Excursions and Expeditions to help you Escape your mundane realities and Explore alternatives with your Falcon or Cougar named Astro, like searching for Meteors and Zodiac constellations (like Taurus, Orion and Scorpio) or visiting a Mustang Ranchero and ride a bucking Pinto Bronco. Maybe you can Aspire to be a Popular Transcontinental Freestyle Maverick Land Rover living on the Edge and go see Victoria's Crown or slap down some Villagers like the Grand Marquis de Sade and his Country Squire in Versailles! Maybe get a Woody drinking Thunderbird in the Sierra Mountains Territory or Continental Divide with a local Mountaineer and some Navajos, around Ten or Ten-Ten. Buy a Sable coat in Monterrey or some Topaz jewelry in Montego Bay.

Whatever you do, be sure to take along a good Navigator and Mariner or Aviator, depending on how you choose to travel, whether it be to Milan or the Isle of Capri. All the while, try to TH!NK what you would tell a Messenger as your last words!

Damn...........

[MG]

Well, I don't know about all this word play, but as soon as I read this article I went right out and executed a Living Will.

Best to be prepared, I say.