Latest news with #Sawala
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Milky Way has 50-50 chance of colliding with neighbor galaxy
(NewsNation) — The collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies that scientists believed was inevitable has a much lower probability than previously thought. The Associated Press reported Monday that astronomers in Finland have determined that our galaxy has a 50-50 chance of colliding with the neighboring Andromeda within the next 10 billion years. The previous theory suggested that the two galaxies had a high probability of colliding within the next five billion years. 'Based on the best available data, the fate of our galaxy is still completely open,' the team wrote in the study, which appeared in Nature Astronomy. A team led by University of Helsinki researcher Til Sawala simulated all possible scenarios using the latest data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia star-tracking mission. According to the simulation yielded some surprising results. Astronomers discover strange new celestial object in our Milky Way galaxy 'A head-on collision is very unlikely, we found a less than 2% chance for that,' Sawala said. 'In most of the cases that lead to a merger, the two galaxies will indeed fly past each other at first, which will lead to a loss of orbital energy, and subsequently to a merger. 'How close they come on their first passage is very uncertain, however, and if they don't come very close, meaning if their distance is more than around 500,000 light-years, they might not merge at all.' Sawala said he was not prepared for what his team found. 'In short, the probability went from near-certainty to a coin flip,' the researcher said. An accidental discovery at a planetarium opens a window into the universe's inner workings The study relied on newer and more precise information, and the team took into consideration a 'more complete system,' including the potential effects of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The dwarf galaxy is the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy, reported. Ultimately, the astronomers found that the Milky Way and Andromeda would inevitably collide if the two galaxies' orbits come close enough to affect a gravitational pull on one another. If they stay well separated, the merger won't happen. While the scenarios indicated a less likely merger between the two, they found that the Milky Way is far more likely to cannibalize the Large Magellanic Cloud. The research indicates that this newly theorized merger is likely to happen over the next two billion years. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- General
- The Hindu
Looming clash between Milky Way, Andromeda may not happen after all
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers reported Monday that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That's essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. 'As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,' the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast may be moot for humanity. 'We likely won't live to see the benefit," lead author Till Sawala of the University of Helsinki said in an email. Already more than 4.5 billion years old, the sun is on course to run out of energy and die in another 5 billion years or so, but not before becoming so big it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly the earth. Even if it doesn't swallow the earth, the home planet will be left a burnt ball, its oceans long since boiled away. Sawala's international team relied on the latest observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia star-surveying spacecraft to simulate the possible scenarios facing the Milky Way and next-door neighbour Andromeda. Both already collided with other galaxies in their ancient past and, according to many, seemed destined for a head-on crash. Past theories put a collision between the two — resulting in a new elliptical galaxy dubbed Milkomeda — as probable if not inevitable. Some predictions had that happening within 5 billion years, if not sooner. For this new study, the scientists relied on updated galaxy measurements to factor in the gravitational pull on the Milky Way's movement through the universe. They found that the effects of the neighbouring Triangulum galaxy increased the likelihood of a merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda, while the Large Magellanic Cloud decreased those chances. Despite lingering uncertainty over the position, motion and mass of all these galaxies, the scientists ended up with 50-50 odds of a collision within the next 10 billion years. 'The fate of our Milky Way galaxy is a subject of broad interest — not just to astronomers,' said Raja GuhaThakurta of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. A full-on collision, he noted, would transform our home galaxy from a disk of stars seen as a milky band of diffuse light across the sky into a milky blob. A harmless flyby of the two galaxies could leave this stellar disk largely undisturbed, thus preserving our galaxy's name. More work is needed before the Milky Way's fate can be predicted with accuracy, according to the researchers. Further insight should help scientists better understand what's happening among galaxies even deeper in the cosmos. While our galaxy's fate remains highly uncertain, the sun's future is 'pretty much sealed," according to Sawala. 'Of course, there is also a very significant chance that humanity will bring an end to itself still much before that, without any need for astrophysical help."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The Milky Way may not collide with neighboring galaxy Andromeda after all: 'From near-certainty to a coin flip'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A titanic cosmic collision between the Milky Way and its closest large galactic neighbor, Andromeda, may not be as sure a thing as scientists thought. Previously, it had been proposed that there was a good chance that Andromeda and our galactic home, which are moving together, would meet in around 5 billion years and merge to form a daughter galaxy dubbed "Milkomeda." New research has revealed that there is a much smaller chance that these two spiral galaxies will slam into each other and merge over the next 10 billion years than was believed. In fact, it's about 50/50. "Our main finding is that the merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda, which had been predicted to occur in around 4.5 billion years, is actually much less certain. We found only about a 50% chance that this merger will happen during the next 10 billion years," team leader and University of Helsinki researcher Til Sawala told "In short, the probability went from near-certainty to a coin flip. "I was prepared to find something different, but yes, the fact that there is only around a 50/50 chance of a merger was very surprising." Sawala and colleagues reached this conclusion by simulating the next 10 billion years of the Milky Way's journey through the new simulation was based on updated astronomical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the European Space Agency (ESA) star tracking mission Gaia. The team also factored in new estimates of the masses of smaller dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way, which, via their gravitational influence, impact the cosmic passage of the Milky Way. "The main difference between our research and previous studies is that we benefited from newer and more precise data, and that we considered a more complete system, including the effect of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy," Sawala said. The team was able to present different scenarios of what could become of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies as they gradually move together."A head-on collision is very unlikely, we found a less than 2% chance for that. In most of the cases that lead to a merger, the two galaxies will indeed fly past each other at first, which will lead to a loss of orbital energy, and subsequently to a merger," Sawala said. "How close they come on their first passage is very uncertain, however, and if they don't come very close, meaning if their distance is more than around 500,000 light-years, they might not merge at all." The researchers found that if the orbits of the Milky Way and Andromeda come close enough for the two galaxies to gravitationally influence each other, then a merger is an eventuality. "But it's almost equally likely that they stay well separated, in which case they won't merge, and also continue to evolve mostly in isolation," The team found that while the odds of a merger with Andromeda drop when the Large Magellanic Cloud's influence is considered, with this adjustment, the Milky Way becomes more likely to cannibalize this satellite dwarf to this research, our galaxy is almost certain to merge with the Large Magellanic Cloud over the next 2 billion years. Related Stories: — Why do dwarf galaxies line up? 'Zippers' and 'twisters' in the early universe may solve a galactic mystery — Scientists calculate when the universe will end — it's sooner than expected — Amateur astrophotographer captures a stunning galaxy 24 million light-years from Earth (photo) "Of course, now we really want to find out whether the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide or not," Sawala said. "That will not only need more observational data, but also more complete modelling of their interaction, as well as of the effect of the environment in which they evolve. "Luckily, there will be more observational data coming very soon, next year, from the Gaia Space Telescope, and perhaps also from the Hubble Space Telescope." The team's research was published on Monday (June 2) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
NDTV
3 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
Milky Way To Collide With Its Largest Neighbour Andromeda? What New Study Said
Quick Read Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. A new study suggests the Milky Way may not collide with Andromeda as previously thought. The chance of a head-on collision in 4.5 billion years is only 2%, with a 50% chance within 10 billion years. Astronomers have long believed that the Milky Way galaxy may collide head-on with its largest neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, in about 4.5 billion years. But a new study shows the cosmic clash, named Milkomeda, might not happen the way it was thought. The new data, obtained using the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes, indicates the likelihood of the Milky Way and Andromeda colliding within the next 4 to 5 billion years is only 2 per cent, CNN reported. It also says there is a roughly 50 per cent chance they will collide at some point in the next 10 billion years. Earlier, scientists believed the collision may destroy both galaxies, merging them into an elongated one. The reason was that the two galaxies were moving toward each other at 2,24,000 miles per hour. They expected it to be similar to other galaxy collisions where a merger would create cosmic fireworks. Carlos Frenk, a Professor at Durham University in England and study co-author, said, "Until now we thought this was the fate that awaited our Milky Way galaxy. We now know that there is a very good chance that we may avoid that scary destiny". Dr Till Sawala, astronomer at the University of Helsinki in Finland and the lead author of the study, said the merger may create a strong starburst where many new stars would form. After that, many young stars will explode, and the supermassive black hole at the centre will become very active, sending out a lot of radiation, he said. A few billion years after the merger, the two original galaxies will no longer look like they used to; instead, they will turn into one spiral-shaped galaxy called an elliptical galaxy, said Mr Sawala. Our corner of the universe, called the Local Group, consists of 100 other smaller galaxies, including some large ones like the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is an Andromeda satellite, whereas the LMC orbits the Milky Way. Mr Frenk cautions that the Milky Way is more likely to collide with the LMC in the next 2 billion years, which might drastically alter our galaxy. Mr Sawala said, "The extra mass of Andromeda's satellite galaxy M33 pulls the Milky Way a little bit more towards it." According to Geraint Lewis, an astrophysics professor at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney, scientists are unsure whether the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide, but even if they do, the gravitational pull that each will exert on the other is likely to leave the two massive galaxies in an awful situation.
NDTV
3 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
Milky Way May Not Be Destroyed In Galactic Smash-Up After All
The Milky Way may not have a catastrophic collision with another huge galaxy as has been predicted, computer simulations revealed Monday, giving our home galaxy a coin-flip chance of avoiding destruction. But don't worry either way: no galactic smash-up is expected for billions of years, long after our ageing Sun will have burnt away all life on Earth. The Milky Way and the even-larger galaxy Andromeda are speeding towards each other at 100 kilometres (60 miles) a second, and scientists have long predicted they will collide in around 4.5 billion years. That would be bad news for our neighbourhood. Previous research has suggested that the Sun -- and our Earth -- could wind up in the centre of this newly merged "Milkomeda" galaxy and get sucked into its supermassive black hole. Alternatively, the Sun could be shot out into the emptiness of intergalactic space. However "proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated", according to a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. There is only a roughly 50 percent chance the Milky Way and Andromeda will smash into each other in the next 10 billion years, the international team of astrophysicists determined. "It's basically a coin flip," lead study author Till Sawala of the University of Helsinki told AFP. The researchers ran more than 100,000 computer simulations of our universe's future, using new observations from space telescopes. A galaxy merger in the next five billion years is "extremely unlikely", Sawala said. Much more likely is that the galaxies will zoom relatively close to each other -- say, a little under 500,000 light years away. In only half of the simulations did dark matter then eventually drag the two galaxies together into a cataclysmic embrace. But this would likely only occur in around eight billion years -- long after our Sun has died, the researchers found. "So it could be that our galaxy will end up destroyed," Sawala said. "But it's also possible that our galaxy and Andromeda will orbit one another for tens of billions of years -- we just don't know." Galaxy's Fate 'Open' "The fate of our galaxy is still completely open," the study summarised. The researchers emphasised that their findings did not mean that previous calculations were incorrect, just that they had used newer observations and taken into account the effect of more satellite galaxies. Future data releases from Europe's recently retired Gaia space telescope as well as Hubble could provide a definitive answer to this question within the next decade, Sawala predicted. How much all this all matters to us is a matter of debate. The Sun is expected to make Earth inhospitable to life in around a billion years. "We might have some emotional attachment" to what happens after we're gone, Sawala said. "I might prefer the Milky Way not to collide with Andromeda, even though it has absolutely no relevance to my own life -- or the lives of my children or great-great grandchildren."
