In the news: UH Hilo astronomer Pierre Martin and team animate collision between two galaxies
What happens when two galaxies collide? A UH Hilo astronomer is helping answer that question and predict the future of the Milky Way.
By Staff/UH Hilo Stories.
Hawaii News Now reports on University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Professor of Physics and Astronomy Pierre Martin and his research team who are trying to predict the future of the Milky Way.
The team has created an animation showing two galaxies colliding more than 440 million years ago. They used data from the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope on Maunakea.
Professor Martin says the Milky Way is due for a similar collision with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 5 billion years. Scientists are calling it “Milk-dromeda.”
“So the models are saying they are going to do exactly like this system, they are going to become one galaxy,” says Professor Martin. “So, the Milky Way is going to disappear.”
Other models show the galaxies are not going to hit each other, but they are going to come close together.
The Milky Way is known as a cannibal galaxy because it absorbed smaller galaxies after about 60 past collisions.
