The Milky Way galaxy which is our universal home is on a collision course with the galaxy called Andromeda. This sensational news became known recently and has erupted the public at large and the scientific circles. Although this is a perspective of a quite far future - some 2 billion years ahead - it still gives some reasons to worry about the future of a mankind. Besides it stirs our minds and offers us a better understanding of galactic processes.
This course of blending or merging of two galaxies - The Milky Way and the Andromeda - refers to a formation of a super galaxy with over 500 billions of stars which is called the Milkomeda or the Milkymeda or the Andromeda Way. The first one is more common among scientists.
This galactic phenomenon is predicted by two scientists T.J. Cox and Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who conducted the relative computer simulations and based on the achieved results suggested that the two galaxies will eventually merge within 5 billions of years. These star formations are currently away from each other by some 2.3 million light-years where 1 light-year is equal to 10 trillion km. However they are closing the gap between each other at a break-neck speed of about 550,000 km/h or 120 km/sec.
The same process we can now observe in reality. With the help of The Hubble Space Telescope scientists photographed the intermingling between galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 which collision started 40 million years ago and physically proved an obvious possibility of such events in our Universe. Since the Andromeda is the closest located galaxy to the Milky Way and has a much bigger mass and a stronger gravitational field, we are drifting now closer with each moment in space. Eventually the two will circle around each other exchanging with their matter, i.e. cosmic dust, stars, clouds, planets, etc. This process will produce a huge amount of energy which will catastrophically affect both galaxies. This will be an inevitable universal cataclysm.
But it will be Andromeda which will steal our solar system.
It is a scientific fact now that each galaxy has a black hole in the center as its core. The black holes may be in a form of white hole, wormhole or a naked singularity. Thus, in the center of the Milky Way - somewhere near the teapot of the constellations Sagittarius A and Sagittarius B - lies a modest-sized black hole which is quiet and lacking the belches of energy observed from the others. The heart of Andromeda harbors a super-massive black hole characterized by an enormous amount of energy. Therefore, one will attract the other based on the huge forces of gravity. It will be a spectacular and horrible event.
Taking into consideration the Kerr theory of black holes ( 1963 ) and the Kerr- Newman formula ( 1965 ) one can say that the only properties of black holes are mass ( M ), charge ( Q ) and angular momentum ( J ) as well as energy ( E ) . In a mathematical language it looks the following way: M > 0, J > 0 and Q is not equal 0. M = +/- E. This confirms the general theory of relativity put forward by Einstein which was specified as E = +/- Mc2.
It appears that it is right because black holes have a super M in a tiny spot called a singularity, they are charged and they are spinning (which creates an awesome gravity). They are membrane-type strings which might regulate an amount and a balance of visible matter, dark matter and visible energy as well as dark energy in our universe and other constituting verses of the single Universe, if any. All this can be proved with a global network of millimeter wave telescopes.
The Universe consists of 100 billion galaxies and constellations and the Milky Way and the Andromeda are the only two of them located relatively not far from each other as was mentioned above. They are flat vast accumulations of the following complex structure:
- gravitationally associated stars (Sun like stars, quasars, neutron stars, pulsars, protostars),
- cosmic clouds (made of gas and dust),
- visible, dark and anti-matter (planets, asteroids, comets, icy bodies, meteors
- visible and dark energy (total electromagnetic spectrum: gamma radiation, X-rays, ultra-violet emission, visible light (protons), infrared radiation and radio waves (short, medium and long).
The Milky Way includes over 200 billion individual stars while the Andromeda houses over 1 trillion stars. They are flattened disks. For instance, the Sun is located 24,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way and makes one rotation around it in 250 million years.
They are spiral galaxies, distinguishable by their bright stars orbiting about their centers in the same clockwise direction. One can see the Andromeda galaxy, or M31 or NGC 224, with a binocular. The thickness of their disks is a few hundred light-years. They both belong to the Local Group of constellations which consists of 35 galaxies. With the help of the Spitzer Space Telescope it was revealed that the number of stars in the Andromeda greatly exceeds their number in the Milky Way, thus its some 20% heavier.
