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Our Milky Way is headed for a 'catastrophic collision with another galaxy'

Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration
Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration
Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration
Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration

Astrophysicists from Durham University have shown that a nearby galaxy is set to slam into the Milky Way, potentially ejecting our solar system into outer space.

The discovery was made when astronomers ran computer simulations on the movement of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies that orbits the Milky Way. This showed that the LMC is not going to keep circulating, or break free from the Milky Way's gravitational pull, rather it will eventually smash into our galaxy.

While individual stars and planets are unlikely to collide, the arrival of a galaxy weighing as much as 250 billion stars will still cause chaos.

Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration
Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration

Carlos Frenk, director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University told the Guardian: "The whole of the Milky Way will be shaken and the entire solar system could be ejected into outer space. If that happens, I don't see how our descendants, if we have any, will be able to withstand it."

On the other hand, the chances of the collision casting our solar system into another region of space are low. Marius Cautun, the first author on the paper, said the chances of this are only 1-3%.

The impending collision with the much larger Andromeda Galaxy has preoccupied those looking to forecast the end of our galaxy up to now. Five times the mass of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Andromeda could completely destroy the Milky Way when the two collide. However, this cosmic catastrophe is forecast to occur in about four billion years' time.

Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration
Dark matter halo surrounding galaxy, illustration

Therefore, as the collision with the LMC is predicted to happen in just 2 billion years time it could postpone or otherwise affect the Andromeda cataclysm. "One of the by-products of the collision with the LMC is it will delay armageddon," said Frenk. "It will move the Milky Way a bit and that may buy us a couple of billion years.

"The LMC is big but it won't completely destroy our galaxy," he said. "It'll produce these amazing fireworks, but it doesn't have the mass to create a huge disturbance. The collision with Andromeda really will be armageddon. That really will be the end of the Milky Way as we know it."