Imagine

You are a riot. Nice post for this morning

And, thanks for the reply, but it pains this polite person to still think they’re going counter-clockwise. Otherwise the little galaxy is having it’s greatest effect on stars that haven’t reached it yet.

I like the glob at the point where some of the stuff is getting redirected towards the little one and some is seemingly escaping the system. That leaving stuff has to be going slower than what’s coming up behind it. And there’s a bit of knot there. Can that knot between them grow? Large enough to hasten the smaller’s collision?

18. CB.

Just as in the ingestion of a living critter, it matters greatly to the critter but not at all to the atoms and molecules comprising that critter.

,,,we’re the atoms,,,

Gary 7

I think they’re spinning clockwise, but that makes sense because they’re in the southern celestial hemisphere. On the other hand, galaxies in the northern celestial hemisphere spin counter-clockwise

They’re each spinning counter-clockwise!

I hope. Is that right?

@16, @26: it seems pretty obvious to me that there’s a tail of material being drawn off from the lower right arm of the large galaxy to the small one. Pretty big “kink” in the arm at that point. The tail looks a bit foreshortened, at least to my eye, because the smaller galaxy is in the foreground with respect to the larger. Looks like the small one has been spiralling closer to the large one over the aeons and that’s more or less what’s been drawing the latter’s arms out as they gyre around each other.

The BA has much more sensitive perception than mine. I look at that picture and I’m thinking, “I wonder if those 2 galaxies are even close enough to interact…”

How fantastically gorgeous is this?

Very!

Superluminous (beyond merely brilliant) image there. Thanks Gemini, Spitzer, Chandra & BA.

Think about that for a second. Think about all the civilizations you might be looking at in a single frame.

Also, how many of those civilizations might be turning their telescopes and looking right back at us?

On another note, and I’ve said this before…when on Earth did I tell Spitzer to do this?!?

Read your post again, really closely, especially that last line… hehehehe! Trust me to notice!

From the perspective of most of the stars and planets in either galaxy participating in the collision, mostly no big deal (though I’d imagine the chances of having a foreign star sweep through your star system are higher in a galactic collision than other times). So it’s all a matter of perspective.

And from the perspective of any astronomers who might be on any of the planets in either galaxy, it’ll probably be “drooling-in-excitement” time.

I’m guessing it’s a strong source of X-rays. But beyond that banal observation, I’m clueless. =D

It’s Doomsday from the perspective of the victim galaxy, since it will no longer exist as an entity. From the perspective of the bigger galaxy, it’s lunch time. From the perspective of most of the stars and planets in either galaxy participating in the collision, mostly no big deal (though I’d imagine the chances of having a foreign star sweep through your star system are higher in a galactic collision than other times). So it’s all a matter of perspective.