Galaxy Collisions: Simulation vs Observations
The folks over at NASA apod just put up an awesome galaxy collisions, simulations and observations video for the public. I made a little gif set to go along with the video which can be found here.
What happens when two galaxies collide? Although it may take over a billion years, such titanic clashes are quite common.
Images Credit: NASA, ESA; Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI);
Simulation: Chris Mihos (CWRU) & Lars Hernquist (Harvard).
Since galaxies are mostly empty space, no internal stars are likely to themselves collide. Rather the gravitation of each galaxy will distort or destroy the other galaxy, and the galaxies may eventually merge to form a single larger galaxy.
Expansive das and dust clouds collide and trigger waves of star formation that complete even during the interaction process. Pictured above is a computer simulation of two large spiral galaxies colliding, interspersed with real still images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Our own Milky Way Galaxy has absorbed several smaller galaxies during its existence and is even projected to merge with the larger neighboring Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.
(via pacificist)
Louis Wain (5 August 1860 – 4 July 1939) was a schizophrenic artist whose images of cats changed as his mental health deteriorated
(Source: diegomeister, via pacificist)
Veggie bagel sammich and black rice with tomatoes and walnuts
#mmm #spinachlove #breakfast
