The Milky Way and Andromeda

I was watching a special on the science channel about our galaxy, and they said that Andromeda is on a collision coarse with the Milky Way!

I know it's not gonna happen any time soon, but I wonder, what it would be like?

Will things be all screwed up and days and nights will be a thing of the past?

I wish I could be around just to see Andromeda in the night sky. That would be an amazing sight to see.

That would be cool to watch from a distance!

It would be the ultimate way to go... Yeah I died when my galaxy collided with another one.

Yes, we are on a collision course with our larger neighbor. There's going to be one heck of a bang up in about three billion years. If the Earth is lucky our galaxy will get tossed into one of the outward spiraling arms. If were not so lucky we'll get tossed towards the center where two massive black holes will be fighting for dominance.

It's called galactic cannibalism and is actually quite common in the universe.

There is a series called, "The Universe" which has the latest thoughts and ideas on the subject. I just finished watching season 1. Fascinating stuff.

Glad i won't be around for the actual show though.

Originally posted by Jeff Riff
That would be cool to watch from a distance!

It would be the ultimate way to go... Yeah I died when my galaxy collided with another one.

That would be an awesome way to die!

I don't wanna die by natural causes or getting murdered, I wanna die from Andromeda!

from now on I am considering it the only way to go.

Originally posted by Venusian12
I was watching a special on the science channel about our galaxy, and they said that Andromeda is on a collision coarse with the Milky Way!

I know it's not gonna happen any time soon, but I wonder, what it would be like?

Will things be all screwed up and days and nights will be a thing of the past?

I wish I could be around just to see Andromeda in the night sky. That would be an amazing sight to see.

I would also like to see Andromeda in the night sky. But we wouldn't be able to see it. Our eyes aren't sensetive enough. But we could use a camera hehe

I wish our eyes were more sensetive so that we could see everything without a telescope or camera.

[edit on 29-12-2007 by ZikhaN]

Oh but you can see andromeda with your naked eye on a clear night and a dark sky (away from any city lights). You just have to know where to look. EVen with simple binoculars, it's a great sight.

Can any galaxies can be seen with the naked eye?

There are 4 that I can think of:

* 1. The Milky Way. This is our galaxy. We're in it so we can see it in all directions. You can see the largest concentration of stars in a band stretching across the sky. It is quite diffuse, so you need to be somewhere really dark to see it well. The centre is in the constellation of sagittarius.
* 2/3. The Magellanic clouds (Large and Small) are two small (ish) galaxies which are being accreted by the Milky Way. You can only see them from the southern hemisphere.
* 4. The Andromeda galaxy (or M31) can be seen as a fuzzy patch in the constellation of Andromeda (again only if it is very dark out).

Galaxies are diffuse patches of light so are hard to see unless the sky is very dark. You can't even see the Milky Way from most cities and Andromeda is even harder. It is possible though.

Naked eye sights

I always had a problem with our own galaxy being labelled "the milky way" why can't we name our own galaxy with a cool name? instead of calling it milk? Andromeda is a so much better name for a galaxy. On topic, I do feel that our galaxy cluster of 3 is getting closer and closer but it wont affect us in any way.

Most galaxies are empty space, so not a great deal!!! I expect some star systems will be flung out, and the night sky would look quite dramatic!

I Don't think the collision with Andromeda will be quite as dramatic as expected. Apparently the odds of two stars colliding is next to 0, check out this link.

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

[edit on 2-1-2008 by R1ghteous]