Galaxy Collision

[Dubh Aingeal]

A major cosmic pileup involving four large galaxies could give rise to one of the largest galaxies the universe has ever known, scientists say. Each of the four galaxies is at least the size of the Milky Way, and each is home to billions of stars. The galaxies will eventually merge into a single, colossal galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way. "When this merger is complete, this will be one of the biggest galaxies in the universe," said study team member Kenneth Rines of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, gives scientists their first real glimpse into a galaxy merger involving multiple big galaxies. "Most of the galaxy mergers we already knew about are like compact cars crashing together," Rines said. "What we have here is like four sand trucks smashing together, flinging sand everywhere."

[Crazed Vampyress]

wow... i love this but just trying to wrap my brain around the whole concept is.... humbling to say the least.

[ttogreh]

Well, don't worry about it too much. We are all here only for about 70, 80 years, right? The shape of the universe will not substantially change in any appreciable manner in ours, our children's, Our children's children's, and their children's children's children's lifetimes.

In fact, the last relevant unknown in regards to things past our atmosphere are asteroids and comets, and all of those will be tracked in less than a hundred years.

Well, there ARE gamma ray bursts, but we can't predict those at all, and if one DOES hit the earth, everyone will be dead in a few minutes from the radiation and the atmosphere frying, so they don't really matter, anyways.

Dance, dance in the darkness, or the sunshine, for we are here, right now... in THIS moment.

[BrassFusion]

great.

so there's gonna be this bigass meta-galaxy and the milky way is TOTALLY gonna get gerrymandered in with andromeda and completely fucking disenfranchised in the 16MAD08 elections. Just cuz we're carbon based doesn't mean we're throwaways, let's organize NOW and get out the vote! it's never too early.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

yes, millions of years. In fact, in our lifetime.. it will take some rather sophisticated technology to discern even the largest of changes.