2# GALACTIC CANNIBALISM; Why You Should Give A — (Persuasive)
Catches the eye, right? Galactic cannibalism. I mean, cannibalism by itself is dramatic but galactic cannibalism? Pretty hardcore.
It’s almost poetic, in a completely barbaric way. Galaxies devouring other close systems, leaving behind the small rubble of sweet star clusters in their wake. It happens when two galaxies are in close proximity to each other and collide. This then triggers the larger galaxy to subsequently absorb parts of the other galaxy. So it’s cannibalism of sorts; one galaxy devours the other.
Alright so honestly, you could go through life, happy or whatever, without ever knowing about galactic cannibalism. Should you? No. Your life will be forever changed by the impending doom that the Milky Way will be devoured by Andromeda, in only a matter of time!
This is scheduled, loosely, to happen in four billion years. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t care. The sun will apparently survive but Andromeda will absorb our galaxy, merging the Milky Way into an add-on to Andromeda.
Reading this article is changing my life, wow. In four billion years, our solar system will outlive our galaxy and our sun will have become almost as hot as a red giant star, not yet but so hot that it will have roasted the earth’s surface! The oceans will have boiled away, all life will be roasty toasty. (A whole other subject but, by that time, our oceans will be completely gone anyway. And so will most of us.)
Andromeda and the Milky Way are currently 2.5 million light years apart but are hurtling towards each other 402,000 kilometres per hour. That’s 9,648,000 kilometres per day and 299,088,000 kilometres in December. There are 8,760 hours in a year, roughly, which would be 3,521,520,000 kilometres per year. I’m 15 years old, so we’ve gone around 52,822,800,000 kilometres towards Andromeda. I’m not exactly 15, so it would be slightly more. Let’s say that Mr. Schwartz is 34 (I’m guessing), that would be 119,731,680,000 kilometres traveled in 34 years.
The end product of the merging of Andromeda and the Milky Way will be a giant elliptical galaxy, one that will take around a billion years to form, the entire collision process taking around 8 billion years to complete. The new galaxy has apparently been dubbed “Milkomeda”, which you hopefully can understand. The cannibalistic act will likely not have any stellar collisions, the stars in both galaxies are spread out although it is likely that a nearby smaller galaxy, Triangulum will be devoured as well (Drake).
So, you should care about galactic cannibalism, because it’s going to happen to us. Only the water bears will survive. Maybe. That’s a whole other discussion. (Did you know you eat water bears regularly??) I should have done this project on Tardigrades.
(Unrelated; cockroaches can hold their breath for 40 minutes? Power move.)
(Unrelated x 2; Cicadas apparently taste like nutty shrimp and asparagus.)
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