what will happen if/when another galaxy collides with ours

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what will happen if/when another galaxy collides with ours

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Anonymous 0 Comments

When not if.

The Andromeda Galaxy will collide with our in about 4.5 billion years.

For comparison 4.5 billion years is about how old the Earth is.

Our Earth will still be there in 4.5 billion years, but life will no longer be possible on it, it will simply be too hot for that.

Still if there was anyone alive in the solar system at that point they would not notice much. The whole process is likely to take a really long time. As the galaxies flow into one another and merge into a bigger one.

Galaxies are mostly made up out of nothing, so despite there being 100s of billions of solar systems involved in the crash, the chance of any stars actually colliding is extremely low.

A few stars might get flung out of the newly formed galaxy, but that will be so slow that anyone on a planet in one such system will not notice too much of it.

There is a good chance that some existing stuff may happen when the black holes in the center of the two galaxies start interact with each other. if they merge that will certainly be something energetic enough that you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that.

Out here in the our spiral arm we will probably be safe, but the collision might end with our sun closer to the core than we are now, which would be a problem.

But stated earlier Earth will be a dead planet by then anyway.

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