Gruesome clash of galaxies give terrifying glimpse into how earth could die (Image: University of Hertfordshire )
have made a gruesome discovery of how a could lead to the end of our world.
An international group of scientists have captured a collision between two galaxies located about 290 million light-years away from Earth.
NGC 7318b, one of the galaxies, travelled towards the other at 2 million mph, pulled by intense gravitational forces. The collision between the pair sparked an immensely powerful shock akin to a “sonic boom from a jet fighter.”
The collision was identified using initial data from the £16.7 million William Herschel Telescope Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer (WEAVE) in La Palma, Spain, alongside observations from the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope in the Netherlands.
This remarkable event occurred in Stephan’s Quintet, a nearby group of five galaxies, including NGC 7317, NGC 7318a, NGC 7318b, NGC 7319, and NGC 7320.
The researchers claimed that the encounter released enough energy to rip apart electrons from atoms, reports .
They said: “This high-speed collision is causing havoc in NGC 7318b, particularly with respect to its reserves of hydrogen gas, which are being stripped off.
“It is likely that the formation of new stars in this galaxy will be greatly slowed down since it is principally hydrogen that fuels this process.”
Professor Gavin Dalton, WEAVE principal investigator at the University of Oxford, told : “NGC 7318b is coming into the galaxy group from behind, and is colliding with NGC 7318a.
“’This is happening because 7318b is falling into the group, most likely as it has been pulled in by the combined mass of the other galaxies. Most of the stars in the galaxies are largely unaffected by this.”
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The research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, offers a preview of the potential future of our Milky Way.
Astronomers estimate a 50% chance that the Milky Way will collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy within the next 10 billion years.
The level of details presented in these first WEAVE images has been termed as “fantastic” and “just a taste of what is to come” by the international team.
Professor Dalton said: “As well as the details of the shock and the unfolding collision that we see in Stephan’s Quintet, these observations provide a remarkable perspective on what may be happening in the formation and evolution of the barely resolved faint galaxies that we see at the limits of our current capabilities.”