These 2 magnificent galaxies are about to collide

There is a story of colliding in space.

Sometimes a meteorite crashes into a doghouse. Sometimes stars collide. Two spiral galaxies collide sometimes.

Hawaii's Gemini North telescope, atop the towering volcano Mauna Kea, recently captured a brilliant view of the universe. The spirals are unaffected as they draw closer to one another, their brilliant centers are 20,000 light-years apart.

The National Science Foundation's NOIRLab said in a statement that the placid conditions will change.

The merger is imminent. Credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA

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What do you think will happen next?

The two galaxies are going to collide over millions of years. The light from these distant galaxies took about 60 million years to reach us. From our point of view on Earth, the huge forces of gravity will create wild changes as the galaxies distort and produce new stars. It will take 500 million years to mix. A single elliptical galaxy will be the ultimate product according to intensive galactic observations and computer simulations.

There are many spirals in the universe. It's going to happen to us as well.

NOIRLab wrote that the merger is a preview of what will happen when the Milky Way and its closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, collide in about five billion years.

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