The two galaxies are presently a Design whothebckstreet backstreet boys the eras crewneck shirt two million light years, give or take, from each other. They are expected to collide, and eventually merge, several billion years from now. Don’t worry, it won’t affect us much. For starters, we won’t be around. The Earth will be a dead world by then, with the Sun near the end of its life as a main sequence star. But even if that weren’t the case, stars are so small compared to the distances between them, no individual solar systems are expected to collide as this merger takes place. It cannot be excluded with certainty of course, but it is unlikely that any star during the merger event will come much closer to the Sun than our nearest stellar neighbors are at present, i.e., never approaching our Sun closer than a couple of light years.
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The Philadelphia Phillies Philadelphia Eagles Philadelphia 76ers Dandelion it’s a Philly thing 2023 shirt thing here is not that we haven’t found aliens, but that we are learning so much about the universe so quickly. 20 years ago nobody knew that there are huge underground oceans on Europa and Enceladus, and methane lakes on Titan. 40 years ago there was no evidence of life at hydrothermal vents or life in deep ocean sediments—organisms that use forms of biology quite unlike that of the familiar organisms here on the surface. 25 years ago there was no evidence of even a single planet around another star! Now we know of thousands. The real number, in our galaxy alone, is probably hundreds of billions. The appropriate attitude here, I’d say, is a mix of giddiness and caution. Giddiness, because the rate of discovery right now is downright astonishing. Caution, because we still have so far to go in answering the big question: Are we alone?
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