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NotAHamsterAtAll t1_iyegcpr wrote

Its easier to understand if we scale things down a bit.

Imagine the sun is a grain of sand on the beach, at this scale, the earth is 15 cm away and invisible.

At that scale the nearest star is 40 km away.

And the center of the galaxy is 2/3 the way to the moon.

Galaxies are extremely sparse objects, so nothing will really happen as far as collisions go.

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shiftycansnipe t1_iyebdh6 wrote

There is so much space between stars that nearly no collisions occur. The gravity well surrounding the black hole will accelerate bodies around it, before any collision or consumption occurs. It’s a disruption more than a collision.

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[deleted] OP t1_iyebpx5 wrote

[deleted]

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SaltySandSailor t1_iyedrsd wrote

Yes, they’re called “rogue” or “intergalactic” stars.

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mangalore-x_x t1_iyev4o1 wrote

The one interesting thing is what happens when two super black holes of two galaxy cores merge. How that would work over what time and how would this event happen?

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shiftycansnipe t1_iyevh5w wrote

Same thing, they will begin orbiting one another. The gravity wells are huge and they would have to be Pixel perfect to collide head on which the odds are so vanishingly small as to be treated as zero

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mangalore-x_x t1_iyf1ob4 wrote

I am more interested in the moment those two merge millions/billions years later. Aka not expecting them to smash into each other on first pass.

I do not think I ever read about observation of binary galaxy cores, yet. or that galaxies harbor several super massive black holes as remnants of mergers.

Obviously time frame would be massive and beyond some single pass of of two galaxies in gravitational influence of each other.

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shiftycansnipe t1_iyf20af wrote

We’ve already detected the gravitational waves of two solar masses black holes merging. here is the sound it made

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Sammy81 t1_iyetok7 wrote

Here is a computer simulation of two galaxies colliding, and they pause it at different points and show you Hubble photographs of 2 galaxies currently in that exact stage of collision. It’s really cool!

https://youtu.be/rs3CL930svo

edit: of course it’s two different galaxies in each photo

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Uncle_Boppi t1_iyerib9 wrote

We don't really know, but we do have that cool picture of the two galaxies that have collided so that can give us a general idea, which seems to be not much happens, they just kind of merge.

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not420guilty t1_iyetd7i wrote

It would be interesting to be on one of the planets (solar systems) that get ejected and launched into deep space. It would be a crazy perspective to watch as your planet flys away from the galaxies.

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Uncle_Boppi t1_iyetvmn wrote

Realistically I think something like that would be too violent for living beings to survive, but it is fun to think about lmao

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mangalore-x_x t1_iyeuw1f wrote

This confuses the time scale involved. You and me probably would not notice. The solar system would just be put on a trajectory out of the galaxy on a time scale of millions of years and need further millions of years to be flung free.

So no, it is not violent.

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not420guilty t1_iyew34m wrote

You are right of course, assuming very short life span of us humans. Maybe our AI children can do the watching since they may live much longer.

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Uncle_Boppi t1_iyexu5f wrote

I don't know, man. I feel like stars and planets colliding would be pretty insane. That would not be some slow and gentle event. The moment shit starts colliding, at tens of thousands miles per hour, it would be catastrophic.

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mangalore-x_x t1_iyf0xfa wrote

Which is the misconception.

There would be few collisions. Galaxies colliding is not two cars smashing together, for lack of a better image it is on astronomical scales more like two gases mixing.

On a time scale of millions to hundreds of millions of years. Same for stray stars getting ejected.

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twdrtskayla t1_iyeuych wrote

Andromeda is heading towards us, so when it gets here, some systems might get hit, planets ejected from a system or two, but only the outer rim. Milky drameda will form, once a spiral galexy, then maybe a hook/ curve galexy, basicaly it will make the galexy into a different shape, barely or serious change depending on the contact, ejected planets from the milky way stolen by Andromeda, after a while the galexy will become more, this might have happened before, who knows

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DaveDaLion t1_iyey29r wrote

I heard that during the process probably nothing would hit each other because distances between different stars and planets are rediculously huge. And in the end a new shapeless cloud would be the new bigger star system.

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BlockOfDiamond t1_iyey6p7 wrote

Generally nothing much, due to the vast distances separating celestial objects

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