Researchers Find Galaxies Likely to Collide

As found on June 16th, 2020, with researchers under the guidance of Riccardo Schavi, the central black holes of the Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are doomed to collide.

Scientists have known about the crash course between the two galaxies for many years, dubbing the possible combination of the galaxies “Milkomeda”. With new simulations, we now know what will happen to the black holes at the center of the galaxy. The black holes will crash 17 million years after initial contact over 1 billion years from now. The interaction will cause the power of 10 quintillion suns to emit from the two black holes. The video simulated the collision of the two galaxies based upon the idea that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards the Milky Way galaxy at 116 kilometers per second and even included the possibility of other materials between then.

There are some inconsistencies within the different studies which analyze the possible contact between the two galaxies. Most studies have the two galaxies merging somewhere between 4-6 billion years from now. Schavi’s study has the galaxies coming into close proximity in 4.3 billion years and will merge fully in 6 billion years. However, the teams estimate is, “a bit longer than what other teams have found,” as stated by Roeland van der Marel, a scientist not involved with the research. The inconsistencies in the research has been attributed to uncertain measurement of the relative speed of the Andromeda galaxy. The collision would look like fireworks and would be quite a sight to see, even if nobody alive right now will ever be able to see it.