Galactic collision

Our Possible Future: Three Scenarios for a Future Encounter Between the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies: Top Left: The two galaxies pass each other at a distance of a million light years. Top Right: As the distance between them decreases to 500 light years, the friction exerted by dark matter causes them to approach for a close encounter. Bottom: A distance of 100 light years leads to a collision. (Courtesy: NASA / ESA)

The Andromeda Galaxy may not collide with the Milky Way – contrary to what we thought

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A new study based on data from the Gaia spacecraft raises a possibility: the expected galactic collision may not occur at all, or at least be significantly delayed.
WEAVE data are superimposed on an image from the Stephen Quintet's James Webb Space Telescope, with green contours showing data from the LOFAR radio telescope. The orange and blue colors follow the hydrogen-alpha luminosity measured by WEAVE LIFU, which shows where the intergalactic gas is ionizing. The hexagon marks WEAVE's observational coverage, 36 kilofarsecs wide (similar to the width of the Milky Way). Credit: University of Hertfordshire.

A galactic collision at a speed of 3.2 million km/h has been documented in great detail

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The dramatic event took place in the Stefan Quintet group, a galactic group that has been studied for nearly 150 years. The collision created a powerful shock wave, described as "like the supersonic boom of a fighter jet," one of the most impressive energetic processes
Simulation of a smooth halo of stars around the Milky Way. Figure: ESA

Gaia: The Milky Way's last major collision happened surprisingly recently

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