【】

The story of space is a story of collisions.
Sometimes, a meteor plummets through Earth's atmosphere and slams into a doghouse. Sometimes stars crash into one another, violently. Other times, two dazzling spiral galaxies collide.
Prime Day deals you can shop right now
Products available for purchase here through affiliate links are selected by our merchandising team. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.iRobot Roomba Combo i3+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum and Mop—$329.99(List Price $599.99)
Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 10.9" 64GB Wi-Fi Tablet—$178.99(List Price $219.99)
Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Gen With MagSafe USB-C Charging Case—$189.99(List Price $249.00)
Eero 6 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (Router + 2 Extenders)—$149.99(List Price $199.99)
Apple Watch Series 9 (GPS, 41mm, Midnight, S/M, Sports Band)—$299.00(List Price $399.00)
Hawaii's Gemini North telescope, atop the towering volcano Mauna Kea, recently captured a brilliant view of the galaxies NGC 4568 and NGC 4567 before they collide. In the image, the spiraled objects are still largely unaffected as they draw closer to one another; their brilliant centers are some 20,000 light-years apart.
"Those placid conditions, however, will change," the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab),which operates some major U.S. telescopes, said in a statement.

Tweet may have been deleted
What happens next?
Over millions of years, the two galaxies will merge together. In fact, since the light from these distant galaxies took about 60 million years to get to us, we know this merger has already begun. But from our vantage point on Earth, their colossal gravitational forces will stoke wild changes as the galaxies distort and produce bounties of new stars, NOIRLab explains. It will be a long, 500-million-year mixing process. The ultimate product, according to intensive galactic observations and computer simulations, will be a single "elliptical galaxy," which can be spherical or perhaps look more like a crushed sphere.
Such mergers of dazzling spiral galaxies are common in the cosmos. Why, it'll even happen to us, too.
Related Stories
- Why landing a spaceship on the moon is still so challenging
- Spectacular Webb telescope image shows a stellar death like never before
- If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here's how you'll know
- The best telescopes for gazing at stars and solar eclipses in 2024
- He found a Milky Way black hole 50 years ago, and finally got to see it
"This merger is also a preview of what will happen when the Milky Way and its closest large galactic neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy collide in about 5 billion years," NOIRLab wrote.
Want more science and tech news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter today.
相关文章
- When Honda revealed its stunning and grandparent-scaring Civic Hatchback Prototype earlier this year2025-04-03
- Netflix is still growing, but not as fast as it once was. The streaming service added only 1.7 milli2025-04-03
'Overwatch' hero spotlight: How to suck less with Mercy
Want help with a different hero? Click hereto check out our master Overwatch guide, where you'll fin2025-04-03Protesters bring their own wall to the Republican convention
It's day three of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, and things aren't getting a2025-04-03Pokémon Go is so big that it has its own VR porn parody now
Behind every great entertainment property there's a cheekily named porn parody. Super Hornio Bros. G2025-04-03Nintendo is now worth more than Sony thanks to 'Pokémon Go'
Pokémon, whoa.Nintendo is now worth more than double what it was before the launch of Pok&eac2025-04-03
最新评论