When Galaxies Clash
SMRTR summary
Right now, you are hurtling through space at over a million miles per hour. You just can't feel it.
This week, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope released a stunning new image of Centaurus A, a galaxy about 11 million light-years away, revealing in extraordinary detail the scars of a collision with another galaxy that happened 2 billion years ago.
The image cuts through space dust using infrared light, exposing star-by-star dynamics around the galaxy's central black hole in ways Hubble and the retired Spitzer telescope simply couldn't achieve. As NASA astrophysicist Shawn Domagal-Goldman put it, "No single telescope tells the whole story."
The image may also be a preview of our own galaxy's fate. The Milky Way could collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sometime in the next 10 billion years, though a 2025 European study puts the odds at roughly 50/50.
Buckle up, Earthlings.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Nautilus.
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