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The Milky Way Might Not Crash Into the Andromeda Galaxy After All
mardi 3 juin 2025, 09:00 , par Slashdot
![]() Their results showed that the presence of M33 and LMC dramatically altered the probability of a collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda. When it is just the two large spiral galaxies, the merger occurred in slightly less than half the simulation runs. The addition of M33 increased the merger probability to two in three. Taking M33 back out and adding LMC had the opposite effect, decreasing the probability to one in three. When all four galaxies were present, the probability of a merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda within 10 billion years is slightly more than 50 percent. 'We find that there are basically two types of outcomes,' Sawala said. 'The Milky Way and Andromeda will either come close enough on their first encounter (first 'pericenter') that dynamical friction between the two dark matter haloes will drag the orbit to an eventual merger, which very likely happens before 10 billion years, or they do not come close enough, in which case dynamical friction is not effective, and they can still orbit for a very long time thereafter.' 'The main result of our work is that there is still significant uncertainty about the future evolution -- and eventual fate -- of our galaxy,' Sawala added. 'Of course, as a working astrophysicist, the best results are those that motivate future studies, and I think our paper provides motivation both for more comprehensive models and for more precise observations.' The research has been published in Nature Astronomy. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/03/0341222/the-milky-way-might-not-crash-into-the-andromeda...
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