Astronomers have said Andromeda galaxies are on a collision course with our galaxy. But we never knew what will happen to the supermassive black holes each galaxy has at its core. But the new simulations have revealed what their ultimate fate will be. The giant black holes at the centers of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will engulf each other and collide.
In about 10 billion years, the galaxies will coalesce into one giant elliptical galaxy called the Milkomeda. After that the central black holes will orbit one another to eventually collide in the next 17 million years according to a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. They will radiate gravitational waves with the power of 10 Quintilian suns before the black holes smash into each other.
Researchers also estimate that the civilization which will be within 3.25 million light-years from us having gravitational waves–sensing technology on par with the current abilities we have would be able to detect the collision. Riccardo Schiavi, an astrophysicist at the Sapienza University of Rome, has shared that according to the latest data the Andromeda is approaching the earth at about 116 kilometres per second.
Schiavi and his colleagues played out the process of galactic collision using computer simulations including the gravitational pull of the two spiral galaxies on each other as well as the possible presence of sparse gas and other material between them.
Simulations done previously suggested Andromeda and the Milky Way are scheduled for a collision in about 4 billion to 5 billion years but the recent data estimates that the two star groups will move closely past each other about 4.3 billion years from now with fully merging together about 6 billion years later.
