Talk about gaining a renewed sense of perspective on humanity, on everything!
15
Maybe if we build an celestial wall that will stop the inexorable march of this foreign galaxy towards our border. We must have security! Make the Milky Way Great Again!
51
Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust.
Getting cremated seems like such a waste of time.
11
I was hoping that as the universe continues expanding, it would lessen the traffic on the freeway.
15
Given that the revised math indicates a *later* collision, I guess we don't have to worry....
9
Hhmmm...Andromeda "is rumbling through the cosmos right toward us at 68 miles per second." Is our galaxy standing still? Why is Andromeda described as in motion...it's all in motion. The galaxies are moving toward each other, no?
10
actually as the universe expands, they are moving away from each other. unless one happens to be in anothers path.
6
@Roak
If you're in a train that is going from Boston to NY at 100 miles per hour, and I'm in a train from Bosten to NY that left Bosten ten minutes later but is going at 200 miles per hour, then my train will hit yours because it's approaching yours at 100 miles per hour (= 200 - 100), you see?
So it's not because one object moves towards another with a specific speed, that that other object doesn't move itself. The speed with which one object approaches another is the result of its own speed minus that of the other object, not its own "absolute" speed.
9
There once was a galaxy called Andromeda
Who's approach to us will cause some phenomena
The effect will be wonderfully sublime
Although its arrival will take a little time
So don't worry, it won't be here before Chanukah
52
@Roy Thank you. This made my night. Very creative. Bravo, Sir.
2
Great, more bad news.
29
Global warming seems like fussing over chump change compared to the Earth being reduced to a smoldering cinder by our expanding sun.
However.. there is a cure. The trick is to move the Earth's orbit farther out from the spot where we sit right now, to a new wider orbit 'round the sun. So starting next week on every Tuesday and Thursday to follow, all inhabitants living in the eastern hemisphere climb on to a chair and jump off two feet to the south. And then (double checks the figures on a slide rule and an abacus) on Wednesdays and Sundays everyone in the western hemisphere climb on to a chair and jump off two feet to the north. At the moment we have enough of a population that the wobble we will begin to impart by all this jumping will slowly nudge the Earth out of its present orbit. As the population increases over the next 20,000 years, the increasing mass of jumping people will impart that much more wobble to hasten us to our destination; just a shade past Mars is my guess. When we find ourselves approaching our new safe orbit, the hemispheres will switch jumping polarities till we slow down our planetary migration to stop at the orbital point where our new giant red sun no longer poses a threat! And yes, not to worry, like a faithful dog our old friend the moon will follow us to our new home.
Or we could just alter the moon's orbit to a much steeper ellipsis and accomplish the same thing without all that jumping.
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@Cletus Butzin
Lol. You seem to forget that the earth's population is expected to stagnate at 11 billion by the end of this century, when all economies on earth are fully developed (and population growth always stagnates in fully developed economies) ... ?
That being said, the idea in itself (= to move the earth and put it further away from the sun) is being studied today indeed.
And the key question is: where to find the massive amount of energy needed to counteract the attraction exercised by the sun (and other planets) on our planet?
NASA is already working on this question, and a potential answer is: from asteroids.
If we can redirect an asteroids' course (as we already do today) in such a way that it comes closer to earth without hitting us, its energy will be given off to our planet, which will change its gravitational field.
And then planet earth may exist 6 billion more years before being reduced to cinder by the sun.
Of course, if Andromeda hits us 1,5 billion year earlier, things may get more complicated ...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2001/jun/10/globalwarming.climatechange
We might just have a climate change solution by then.
Pity.
12
In my younger days, I would agree with Mr. Green & MRod, but in my old age I’m convinced that civilization was a regression. We were happier & healthier as foragers before farming. And I think, smarter.
15
@JGSD
Maybe. But we also died at 40-years old ... AND we wouldn't have NASA, which today already is planning to move the earth out of orbit so that planet earth gets to "live" some 6 billion more years ... and with it all the fauna and flora on earth (IF we start to act fast to stop the current global warming, that is).
2
Will this be the end of mankind. We could build a space ship that can outrun that Universe easily. We have a lot of time to do that. We could start on it in a million years from now.
7
Can’t be so sure. During the 4 Billion years or so what will change and what path the Andromeda May follow could change. And there will be no today’s scientist to say I told you so
3
We have some time to start building a wall to protect us from this.
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@Stew
i agree , build a wall and make the Martians pay for it !
25
@Stew Exactly - Earth should build the wall and we'll get Mars to pay for it! Righto!
5
Awaiting Andromeda
Everlasting darkness unforgiving
Denies that there are stars that we see through:
We only see the faces of the living
And those of whom the briefest loss is true.
The stars we see are not yet deathly red
For almost all are close and shine plain sight,
In forms and clusters that the ancients read
So what we see is touched by sparks of light.
The Way will turn its vast eternal wheel
As eons pass and star lights fail and dim
And we in stardust through our substance feel
Andromeda drawn broken to the rim.
Will we like her be rescued from the void
When the obliviating dragon is destroyed?
11
Then there's time now. The human species will be long gone before that happens.
9
Andromeda is coming? Bring it on! We’ll crush it in our own home turf. (Of course, according to the theory of Relativity, Andromedeans can view the Milky Way is coming towards them, so it’s their home turf).
4
I have come to wonder whether stars and galaxies aren't as much life forms as we are - on a different scale and with an altogether different type of 'consciousness'. They are born, grow, move at unimaginable speeds, and die.
10
@lm
A further development of this idea can be found in Dr. Clement Vidal's book "The beginning and the End".
1
As the sun expands before exploding will each more distant planet and its moons become progressively more habitable until humanity's last stand for survival reaches Pluto or another Kuiper belt object? Or will the expansion be too quick? From there, if hopschotching onto an incoming Andromeda world isn't possible, could firing a life bomb containing our most basic — perhaps single celled existence — be shot into space as a (some would say unethical) last grasp?
4
...And I for one welcome our impending Andromedaean overlords.
22
It's been a great ride, but just like everything else it'll all be over in a matter of parsecs!
3
Hmmm I'm rethinking buying green bananas
20
Over that span, while Andromeda moves closer, the other galaxies will move away. Much of what Hubble now sees and the learning about the Universe’s early days will be out of sight. It will be the same as living in a completely wilderness and a big noisy neighbor moves in right next to you.
4
Mmm. Better remark my calendar.
14
Videos made by Mr Overbye illustrate the awesome alien beauty of the universe. It begs us to consider our situation as human beings, fragile and so vulnerable to forces that are way beyond our understanding. And all the questions that inevitably pop up; are there other beings like us, so where have we come from and where are we going?
Makes you want to cherish what we have on Earth and become better human beings. Thank you Mr. Overbye.
30
We have better things too worry about. Humanity may be in its last century, maybe its last decades. Scientists are hogging up funds better spent to ease our demise, if that’s possible. Here in California I recorded 123 degrees f.last summer. Imagine future summers.
9
@JGSD
The problem isn't that we spend too much on science. The problem is that we spend too little of our time and resources developing an appreciation of what science is on the part of every person who graduates, or has graduated, from elementary school so that we may act to prevent our demise. Rather than redirect money from scientific research to develop a wider understanding of science, money should be redirected from the pockets of the top 1/10th of 1% who would thereby have to get by with just five or six homes and just two or three private jets. This would be a burden on them for it is always better to have a few more homes and a couple more private jets. However, these are sturdy people and I believe that they could find there way to bear up under their relatively straitened circumstances.
25
@JGSD, All the more reason to celebrate our intellectual achievements and our knowledge of our place in time and space. For some of us at least, the excitement, pleasure, and intellectual satisfaction that astronomy and space exploration provides is a big antidote to the dread of thinking about all our worldly problems. And the money you say scientists are hogging up is infinitesimal compared to the money we spend fighting with one another or frivolously entertaining ourselves. NASA's budget is 0.4% of the federal budget. For a tax payer with a $100,000 income, that would be ~$100. The average American household spends $3,000 on entertainment per year.
In your opinion, the money for which of the following would have been better spent on other things: Mt. Wilson Observatory where Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe? The Apollo program? The robotic exploration of the solar system, like Voyager, Viking, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity, Cassini-Huygens, Juno, and New Horizons? The great reflecting telescopes like Keck and Subaru? The Hubble Space Telescope? The Kepler Space Telescope, discoverer of thousands of exoplanets? The Parker Solar Probe? LIGO, discoverer of gravity waves? Should we shut down TESS, Curiosity, JUNO, Hubble, New Horizons, and Voyagers. Should we scrub construction of the James Webb Space Telescope and the Europa orbiter and lander?
13
Mr.Overbye's article makes it sound as though "our" Milky Way were the passive target of the Andromeda galaxy hurtling toward us. Isn't the projected collision the result of a mutual gravitational attraction between the two galaxies? From the perspective of the Andromeda galaxy, wouldn't it look as though the Milky Way were hurtling towards it?
27
@Steven L Goldman Sure, but let the Andromedans write their own articles.
54
Continuing the traffic analogy, it's as if Andromeda and the Milky Way, being close enough, have together formed a (gravitational) sinkhole into which they are now both sliding, and will meet at the bottom in a crash. The many galaxies around us are like cars streaming outward from a sporting event (in the Hubble flow from the Big Bang) in the sport stadium lot. Some are driving outward with more peculiar velocity than others (with Andromeda's being a couple of times higher than ours, in a vehicle about the same mass as ours or a bit more). In court, Andromeda might get the citation, as clocked by astronomers from their traffic helicopter observatories, always watching the whole traffic pattern.
2
@Max Brown
Ha! Thanks for the laugh.
6