The universe appears impossible to comprehend, both in its unimaginable celestial time scales and its infinite size. Yet mankind's relentless curiosity about deep space is starting to reap rewards, with breakthroughs about black holes and the big bang. And now newly-released simulations from a Durham University scientific team have revealed apocalyptic implications for mankind and the Milky Way we inhabit.
The Milky Way galaxy is Earth’s home, along with an estimated 250 billion other stars.
However, all this is about to change, because our most massive satellite galaxy – the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is on a collision course with the Milky Way.
DrCautun, a member of the Durham University scientific team which used supercomputer models to calculate the chance of the collision, exclusively outlined the timeframe and two main effects the cosmological crash.
He said: “The collision will take place in about two billion years – while this is very long compared to a human life, it is very short for cosmic phenomena, which take place on time frames of many billions of years.”
First of all the collision will wake up the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, which could grow in mass by a factor of ten.
“This will trigger a quasar at the centre of our galaxy and will spew immense amounts of radiation in all wavelengths.
“Thankfully, the Earth is far enough from the centre of our galaxy and life on it is unlikely to be affected."
The secondly, however, will trigger a chain of events that can pose a danger to life.