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Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are surprisingly rare. Astronomers may finally know why. (www.livescience.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

A computer simulation says spiral galaxies on a plane bang into each other and result in more elliptical galaxies. Ours hasn’t banged into anyone else yet, that the computer simulation knows about.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

... So that infamous impending collision with Andromeda will take our spirals away?!

(Impending in a cosmological sense, so several million years at least IIRC)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Thousands of millions of years I think, and continuing for at least hundreds of millions before the bouncing stops

https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExbzcxZ2VudzQ0djQwZTB4MXdzbzdqdXQ4aDVkdWxkMnJ3amJndmlrbCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/rytLWOErAX1F6/giphy.gif

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Actually our galaxy has had at least 1 other collision according to our current understanding.

https://www.wired.com/story/this-galactic-collision-shaped-the-history-of-the-milky-way/

But our spiral likely formed after.