Collision Of Galaxies isn't that scary By Katherine Lightwood

Collision Of Galaxies isn't that scary

By Katherine Lightwood

Staring at the night sky gives me so much thought. Last night I took a break after I overworked and felt a bit dizzy. While watching the night sky I thought what would happen if the two galaxies collide.

It might be odd to get your head around, but galaxies can and do collide. But far from a wild party of death, galaxies collision yield hotbeds for new star formation. Leading astronomers suggests that this not so violent event is actually a driving force behind the galactic evolution.

The big question here is that how can galaxies collide and just not destroy everything?

To know that let’s focus on what galaxies exactly is. Every galaxy is made up of 100 billion stars with planets orbiting their host stars, but those stars are really far apart. Take Milky Way for example. We are at the edge of the spiral arm called Orion Spur. It looks crowded in our little neighborhood, but our nearest neighbor Alpha Century A is actually 4.3 light-years away.

So, galaxies might be full of stars, but those stars are really far apart. Meaning the likely hood of two hitting is pretty low. But that doesn’t mean nothing happens, because there is stuff in those vast distances. The ‘space’ between stars is actually full of gas and dust. Within these regions, there are dense pockets of interstellar materials called ‘Molecular Clouds’. And they collapse under their own mass and gravity forming protostars and eventually new stars.

When galaxies collide, its interstellar material interacts with each other gravitationally and it has shown some unique results. In a galaxy one material can rip from another, disrupting star formation and adding more material to its own molecular clouds. 

A direct collision between these gases can also result in shock waves reverberating through both galaxies, triggering new regions of star formation where there wasn’t anything before. Aside from generating new pockets of star formation, both close passes and full-on collisions cause enormous gravitational interactions.   Two spiral galaxies could merge and form an elliptical galaxy with more active star formation than either had before.

But it’s not like it happens overnight, this process can take millions of years, which is a very good thing because our own milky way is going to crash with the Andromeda galaxy. So, we have got a good four billion years. And that should be enough time to live my best life I guess…

So, that was my thought of the day. To see more posts like this make sure to visit our main page. And Do not forget to visit our institute's page to know more about graphic design, 3D, animation courses and other awesome stuff. Till then good day to you.

Katherine Lightwood