NASA Released the Largest Image Ever Taken of Space (in Jan 2015) & it's About to Shake Up Your Universe

[AbbyNucksFan]

In about 4 Billion years, no telescope will be needed to see the Andromeda Galaxy from the Milky Way.

http://www.space.com/15947-milky-andromeda-galaxies-collision-simulated-video.html

see now this is one thing I dont understand... I've heard this before that Andromeda will "slam into" the milky way and form 1 super giant galaxy.. but scientists are always saying that the universe is expanding and all the galaxies are flying apart from one another (red shift)...

[Ghostsof1915]

The galaxies are colliding! The galaxies are colliding!

[SabreFan1]

see now this is one thing I dont understand... I've heard this before that Andromeda will "slam into" the milky way and form 1 super giant galaxy.. but scientists are always saying that the universe is expanding and all the galaxies are flying apart from one another (red shift)...

Even this far away, both galaxies are feeling a gravitational pull towards each other. It's irreversible. So no matter how much the universe expands, everything is already set in motion. It will only get stronger and faster as time goes on.

Look at it this way, since our solar system will fling apart when that happens, the sun won't have a chance to gobble the earth up when it becomes a red giant star in about 5 billion years.

[Offensive Threat]

The real end times are 100 trillion years from now, give or take, when the last main sequence stars in out galaxy die out and, with all of the material that makes stars used up, our universe will become a very dark, desolate place. Dead. The end of the stellar era and the beginning of the degeneration era. The decay and slow death of what remains of our universe in the pitch black darkness. Fun times.

Of course if humanity survives we will harness the powers of creation itself eventually and be able to build endless new universes. So theres that, which is nice.

[SabreFan1]

The real end times are 100 trillion years from now, give or take, when the last main sequence stars in out galaxy die out and, with all of the material that makes stars used up, our universe will become a very dark, desolate place. Dead. The end of the stellar era and the beginning of the degeneration era. The decay and slow death of what remains of our universe in the pitch black darkness. Fun times.

Of course if humanity survives we will harness the powers of creation itself eventually and be able to build endless new universes. So theres that, which is nice.

There are a bunch of theories about the end of the universe. It just depends on which one you subscribe to. There are some physicists who say that the universe will die in Billions of years and there some who do not believe in a zero sum energy universe. i.e. they believe that the universe will always recreate itself because energy can never truly be destroyed.

I have no relevant opinion on the matter since I will never be able to understand or do the math that is required to prove a theory. That and I am not in the .1% of the Bell Curve of the smartest people on the planet.

[Tre Mac]

My universe is unshakable.

[drdeath]

To put this in perspective. The Andromeda Galaxy is 780 Kiloparsecs (A Kiloparsec is 3262 light years) in other words 2.5 MILLION light years away.

You are looking at the Andromeda Galaxy as it looked 2.5 Million Years Ago. In other words we were just evolving from Apes at that time.

That's 65,000 Millennium Falcon Kessel runs!

[Qwags]

You're right, Jazz. I can physically feel the shaking.

[Red Light Racicot]

see now this is one thing I dont understand... I've heard this before that Andromeda will "slam into" the milky way and form 1 super giant galaxy.. but scientists are always saying that the universe is expanding and all the galaxies are flying apart from one another (red shift)...

The galaxies arent actually going to physically collide, as galaxies are mostly empty space. Apparently no stars are going to literally smack into each other.

Overall the Universe is expanding, thats just a local thing where gravity prevails.

[Red Light Racicot]

I actually thought that music with the weird vocalizations and ridiculous deafening ambiance was a bit too much for me.

[Kakanucks]

The galaxies arent actually going to physically collide, as galaxies are mostly empty space. Apparently no stars are going to literally smack into each other.

Overall the Universe is expanding, thats just a local thing where gravity prevails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4disyKG7XtU

So would it be similar to merging/fusing together then? Like become a super galaxy?

Not gonna lie, didn't really read up on this whole collision thing.

[SabreFan1]

The galaxies arent actually going to physically collide, as galaxies are mostly empty space. Apparently no stars are going to literally smack into each other.

Overall the Universe is expanding, thats just a local thing where gravity prevails.

Odds are against any stars colliding, but it's not entirely impossible. Either way, the Earth will already be a sun-scorched and baron wasteland well before the galaxy's collide. By then the sun will be pumping out some serious energy while it's gearing up to slowly become a red giant star.

[SabreFan1]

So would it be similar to merging/fusing together then? Like become a super galaxy?

Not gonna lie, didn't really read up on this whole collision thing.

The two spiral galaxies will most likely join to become one large elliptical galaxy. That's the prevailing theory anyways.

[Red Light Racicot]

So would it be similar to merging/fusing together then? Like become a super galaxy?

Not gonna lie, didn't really read up on this whole collision thing.

I believe so, but a good amount stars from both galaxies are going to be gravitationally slingshot into random directions too.

[Red Light Racicot]

Odds are against any stars colliding, but it's not entirely impossible. Either way, the Earth will already be a sun-scorched and baron wasteland well before the galaxy's collide. By then the sun will be pumping out some serious energy while it's gearing up to slowly become a red giant star.

I would have sworn that there would have to a be collision somewhere;

There are going to be hundreds of billions of stars involved, not to mention countless multiple star systems, some with close orbiting binaries, etc.

But the consensus seems to be that it is unlikely. I was disappointed.

[Raoul Duke]

They couldn't have picked lamer music.