by Two galaxies are drawn together by forces they can't see but they can feel. It's a mutual gravitational attraction.
It's inevitable: Inch by inch, light-year by light-year, as the cosmic clock ticks on through the eons, the galaxies grow closer.
They can't help it; their motion was set by tiny instabilities billions of years ago that have only grown stronger in the eons since.
As they near each other, the galaxies begin to embrace as thin tendrils of gas and stars reaching out through the tenuous medium between them.
Then, they collide.
These two massive structures, each 100,000 light-years across, host hundreds of billions of stars.
During the merger, 100 trillion suns' worth of material collide, mix and ignite.
Source
It's inevitable: Inch by inch, light-year by light-year, as the cosmic clock ticks on through the eons, the galaxies grow closer.
They can't help it; their motion was set by tiny instabilities billions of years ago that have only grown stronger in the eons since.
As they near each other, the galaxies begin to embrace as thin tendrils of gas and stars reaching out through the tenuous medium between them.
Then, they collide.
These two massive structures, each 100,000 light-years across, host hundreds of billions of stars.
During the merger, 100 trillion suns' worth of material collide, mix and ignite.
Source
