Astronomy / Space Galaxy Simulation (Milky Way and Andromeda)
- Thread starter SkyLeach
- Start date
Magnificent. But a nightmare. As a kick in the anthill
A galactic fireworks
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You are seeing it happen.
The process will take billions of years to reach the stage illustrated in the graphic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda–Milky_Way_collision
It's a bit scary to see a long exposure of Andromeda and see just how much of our sky it fills.
See how you feel.
In a way, most things about space still leave me amazed.
The actual size if it, that light takes so long to reach us from those objects. That there are, (almost certainly) many many different people out there with their own thoughts, their own ideas and hopes. And we will never, ever meet them or even be aware of them.
I've wonder how things might be for a world which is illuminated from both sides, that never experiences a natural dark?
Would they ever have an awareness of the stars?
Since their suns would presumably be with them at all times, would they ever honour them as early humans did, which lead to the fascination with the heavens?
It's a great graphic.
Most cosmologists agree that it would be very rare for any stars to actually collide.
Most also agree, however, that many billions of years in the future when the galactic cores finally collapse the resulting hawking radiation burst would probably sterilize any life still around in both galaxies. Just the shockwave of radiation would take many thousands of years to reach all the stars, but it would be effectively unstoppable and absolutely devastating to anything not shielding by some kind of planet-wide energy shield.