Fragments of a cosmic catastrophe, following the example of which events will most likely develop in our galaxy in 450 million years, were able to register American scientists using the Hubble telescope. This is a collision of two galaxies: the spiral NGC 2445 (pictured right) and its less bright NGC 2444 (left), the video of which is posted on the NASA website.
Astronomers assume that they passed through each other, and this led to active star formation in NGC 2445, which, as a result, acquired an unusual triangular shape instead of a spiral one. This happened because she never managed to escape from the "gravitational grip" of her partner. Thus, the galactic tug-of-war ended with the victory of the left galaxy NGC 2444, which caused an intense process of star formation in the bowels of its victim (young blue stars are clearly visible in the photo). “This duo of galaxies is ideal for studying star formation and galaxy interactions,” the scientists commented on what they saw.
“For now, we are looking at this from afar, from a safe distance, but in 4500000000 years, the same awaits our Galaxy, which will collide with a more massive adversary - the Andromeda Nebula.
But you don’t have to worry about this - in 1500000000 years our Sun will begin to expand, increasing the temperature and luminosity, and by the time Andromeda arrives, it will become a red giant and either completely swallow the Earth, or simply leave nothing alive on it ... ”- writes about this technical expert Vadim Lukashevich in his blog.