The Gemini North telescope, located in Hawaii, captured a picture of two entangled galaxies that will eventually merge into one in millions of years. Presumably, the same fate awaits the Milky Way galaxy.
This is reported by CNN.
The telescope spotted interacting spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. The galaxy pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, also known as the Butterfly Galaxies, have just begun to collide as gravity pulls them together. After 500 million years, the two cosmic systems will complete their merger and form a single elliptical galaxy.
At this early stage, the two galactic centers are 20,000 light-years apart, and each galaxy retains its shape. As galaxies become more entangled, gravitational forces will lead to intense star formation. The initial structures of galaxies will change and distort. Over time, they will "dance" around each other in smaller and smaller circles. This tightly looped dance will pull and stretch the long streams of gas and stars, mixing the two galaxies into a sphere shape.
After millions of years, this galactic entanglement will absorb or disperse the gas and dust necessary for star formation, slowing down and eventually ceasing.
A similar galactic merger will occur when the Milky Way galaxy eventually collides with the Andromeda galaxy, our largest and closest galactic neighbor. NASA astronomers used data from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012 to predict when a head-on collision between the two might occur. According to estimates, this event will take place in about 4-5 billion years. According to a study based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope from 2020, right now the massive halo surrounding the Andromeda galaxy is actually colliding with the halo of the Milky Way galaxy.
Containing up to a trillion stars, this neighbor is similar in size to our own large galaxy and is only 2.5 million light-years away. On the astronomical scale, Andromeda is so close that it can be seen in the autumn sky as a faint cigar-shaped piece of light.
NASA scientists say itʼs unlikely our solar system will be destroyed when the Milky Way and Andromeda merge, but the Sun could be in a new region of the galaxy, and Earthʼs night sky could see exciting new views.