5 Surprising Facts About Andromeda Galaxy’s Dual Core and Potential Collision with Milky Way

6. Has dual core

The Andromeda Galaxy has a double nucleus. The two peaks of light contained several million densely packed stars and they were only separated by five light years.

The first nucleus is known as P1, while the second is known as P2. Some astronomers have determined that the nucleus is not actually two halves, but simply a tilted cluster of stars orbiting a supermassive black hole.

The stars in P1 follow elliptical orbits around the black hole and spend most of their time shining in the outer region, making the region appear bright. The second core exists only because stars cluster together as they approach the black hole.

7. It is possible that Andromeda will crash into the Milky Way

This galaxy is expected to collide with the Milky Way about 4 billion years from now. These two galaxies will collide and form a new elliptical galaxy and will be named Milkomeda.

Collisions between galaxies take hundreds of millions of years to complete and are driven by gravitational effects. The Andromeda Galaxy is currently moving closer to the Milky Way Galaxy at a speed of 100 to 140 kilometers per second.

Researchers used Hubble to track the movement of stars in Andromeda with unprecedented accuracy. Collisions of this kind are relatively common, given the long lifespan of galaxies.

(Tiffany)

2024-03-08 17:07:36
#Interesting #Facts #Andromeda #Galaxy #collide #Milky