A NASA visualization showing the Milky Way and Andromeda at four billion years from now, if they make an encounter.
Galaxy illustrations courtesy of NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI) T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger. Visualization courtesy of NASA, ESA, and F. Summers (STScI)
hide caption
toggle caption
Galaxy illustrations courtesy of NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI) T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger. Visualization courtesy of NASA, ESA, and F. Summers (STScI)
A NASA visualization showing the Milky Way and Andromeda at four billion years from now, if they make an encounter.
Galaxy illustrations courtesy of NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI) T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger. Visualization courtesy of NASA, ESA, and F. Summers (STScI)
The Andromeda galaxy lies just beyond (…OK, about 2.5 million light-years beyond) our galaxy, the Milky Way.
These galaxies are more than just neighbors: They’re gravitationally bound. And for the past hundred years or so, scientists thought these galaxies existed in a long-term dance of doom — destined to crash into one another and combine into one big galactic soup.
But a recent paper out in the journal Nature Astronomy suggests this cosmic game of bumper cars may never come to a head at all. NPR Short Wave host Regina G. Barber chats with computational astrophysicist Arpit Arora to learn more about the odds.
Interested in more space episodes? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts, and the audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.
