Milky Way to CRASH into Andromeda Galaxy: Scientists warn it's unavoidable

The Milky Way galaxy is home to some 200 billion stars but dire simulations show this number will forcibly grow in the future. Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is the closest spiralling galaxy neighbouring our own corner of space. Andromeda Galaxy also happens to be hurtling towards the Milky Way without any hopes of it missing. The dire news comes thanks to the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia satellite, which explored the movement of Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxy (M33).

Previous studies of the impending collision have suggested a crash date nearly 3.5 billion years from now.

But astronomers who have studied Gaia’s latest batch of data, have suggested the crash will occur 600 million years later.

And the good news is, Andromeda is not headed for a direct hit with the Milky Way.

The ESA said in a statement: “While the Milky Way and Andromeda are still destined to collide and merge, both the timing and destructiveness of the interaction are also likely to be different than expected.

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“As Andromeda’s motion differs somewhat from previous estimates, the galaxy is likely to deliver more of a glancing blow to the Milky Way than a head-on collision.

“This will take place not in 3.9 billion years’ time, but in 4.5 billion – some 600 million years later than anticipated.”

By combining existing studies of Andromeda and Triangulum, the ESA’s researchers have calculated the expected trajectories of the two galaxies.

This helped the astronomers determine their paths billions of years into the future as well as in the past.

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Research co-author Ekta Patel of the University of Arizona said: “The velocities we found show that M33 cannot be on a long orbit around M31.

The astronomer said this suggests the two galaxies formed through past interactions with other galaxies billions of years ago.

The scientist said: “Gaia was designed primarily for mapping stars within the Milky Way — but this new study shows that the satellite is exceeding expectations, and can provide unique insights into the structure and dynamics of galaxies beyond the realm of our own.

“The longer Gaia watches the tiny movements of these galaxies across the sky, the more precise our measurements will become.”

Data collected by the Gaia satellite will now be used to build the most comprehensive 3D model of the galaxies’ motions and stars in the universe.

source: express.co.uk