Astronomers Just Captured New Image Of Solar Systems Colliding Inside Galaxies Revealing The Epic Fate Of Our Milky Way

A recent telescopic shot shows what will eventually happen to our own Milky Way.

A stunning telescope image reveals two galaxies that are entangled and will eventually merge into one galaxy millions of years from now, forecasting the Milky Way's doom.

The interacting spiral galaxies were discovered in the Virgo constellation, approximately 60 million light-years away, by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea's summit.

The Butterfly galaxies, also known as NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, are two galaxies that are colliding owing to gravity right now.

After 500 million years, the two cosmic systems will merge to form a single elliptical galaxy.

At this early stage, the two galactic centres are 20,000 light-years apart, and each galaxy has retained its pinwheel configuration.

The image depicts the brilliant remnants of a supernova SN 2020fqv (callout box) discovered in 2020. This view from Hawaii's Gemini North telescope shows two interacting spiral galaxies, NGC 4568 (bottom) and NGC 4567 (top), as they collide and merge. In 500 million years, the galaxies will merge to form a single elliptical galaxy. International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA are the photographers. T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NOIRLab), NSF's J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab), NSF's M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab), and D. de Martin (NSF's NOIRLab) processed the images.

As the galaxies become more linked, gravitational forces will induce a number of intense star formation events.

The architecture of the original galaxies will be altered and deformed.

They will dance in ever-shrinking circles around one another over time.

This complex looping dance will drag and stretch out long streamers of gas and stars, uniting the two galaxies into what appears to be a spherical.

This cosmic entanglement will destroy or disperse the gas and dust essential to begin star formation over millions of years, slowing and eventually stopping stellar formation.

Because of prior galaxy collisions and computer models, astronomers now have more evidence that spiral galaxies unite to form elliptical galaxies.

When the two are combined, the final structure will resemble Messier 89, an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo.

After Messier 89 lost the majority of the gas required to make stars, very little star formation occurred.

The galaxy now contains older stars and ancient clusters.

The afterglow of a supernova, which was discovered for the first time in 2020, can also be seen as a bright point in one of the spiral arms of galaxy NGC 4568 in the new image.

Merger of the Milky Way

A comparable galactic merger will occur when the Milky Way galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy, our closest and most powerful galactic neighbour.

NASA researchers used Hubble data in 2012 to anticipate the likely date of a collision between the two spiral galaxies.

The event is expected to occur between 4 and 5 billion years from now.

According to research based on Hubble Space Telescope data released in 2020, the Andromeda galaxy's halo is currently pushing up against the Milky Way galaxy's halo.

Andromeda's halo, a huge envelope of gas, reaches out from the galaxy 1.3 million light-years out, nearly halfway to the Milky Way and up to 2 million light-years in other directions.

This neighbour is only 2.5 million light-years away, has the same size as our massive galaxy, and might hold a trillion stars.

From an astronomical standpoint, it may appear far away, but it pulls Andromeda so close that it may be seen in our October sky.

In the autumn, it may seem as a fuzzy cigar-shaped speck of light high in the sky.

Andromeda features a massive halo three times the width of the Big Dipper and dwarfs everything else in our sky, albeit it is invisible to the naked eye.

It's unlikely that our solar system will be killed when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide, but the Sun may be transported into a new area of the galaxy, opening up new vistas in Earth's night sky.