When the Galaxies Collide, Our Solar System Will Go for a Ride
For decades, astronomers have known that the Milky Way galaxy is on a collision course with the neighboring Andromeda spiral galaxy. What was unknown until now: the fate of the Sun and our solar system in that melee. New calculations by theorists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics show that the Sun and its planets will be exiled to the outer reaches of the merged galaxy. Moreover, the collision will take place within the Sun's lifetime, before it becomes a burned-out white dwarf star, but after the Earth's oceans have boiled over and evaporated.
Comments:
Sorta depressing, eh? As a child, I often thought about these scenarios with some apprehension, but overall positive outlook. Although we don't know for sure about our future, it is unlikely we will be intelligent enough to hold our biosphere together for the next 100 years, let alone be around on another planet or spaceship viewing the incineration of earth or the galaxies merge in 5 billion years.
If and it is a big if we do make it to that time what a rush to see eh Jef!!
