Andromeda and the Milky Way Galaxy Collide! (VIDEO)
Caption
In about five billion years time, nearby massive galaxy Andromeda will merge with our own galaxy, the Milky Way, in an act of galactic cannibalism (technically Andromeda will be eating us, as it's the bigger of the two galaxies.). There haven't been any large mergers with our galaxy recently, but we can see the remnants of galaxies that have previously been snacked on by the Milky Way. We're also going to eat two nearby dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds sometime in the future. This simulation shows what will happen when the Milky Way and Andromeda get closer together and then collide, and then finally come together once more to merge into an even bigger galaxy.
Credit
Simulation Credit: Prof Chris power (ICRAR-UWA), Dr Alex Hobbs (ETH Zurich), Prof Justin Reid (University of Surrey), Dr Dave Cole (University of Central Lancashire) and the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the University of Leicester.Video Production Credit: Pete Wheeler, ICRAR.
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