LIVE: Milky Way Galaxy collision more likely while NASA prepares for lunar rescue
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Milky Way could, relatively soon, collide with a neighboring galaxy.
A new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy found that there is a 50-50 chance that the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies could collide in the next few billion years.
In this week’s Space Space, we’re taking a closer look at the report and why NASA is trying to rescue astronauts at the South Pole.
Galactic collision
Researchers at the University of Helsinki looked into the chances of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies colliding.
“The Milky Way is not doomed – whether that’s relevant for the sun or for the earth, that’s another question. But yeah, so basically we found that there’s only about a 50-50 chance that the Milky Way will collide with Andromeda in the next 10 billion years,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Till Sawala from the University of Helsinki, to the Associated Press.
Sawala and his team made the discovery while studying observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia star-surveying spacecraft. Hubble is operated by NASA. Gaia is owned by the European Space Agency.
The research looked at possible futures for the two galaxies. Both galaxies have collided with other galaxies in the past, according to the Associate Press.
Other galaxies and celestial bodies could change the likelihood of the galaxies colliding. More observations are needed to determine the galaxy’s ultimate fate.
“Even though we say that we really can’t say what the outcome is right now based on the data that we have, this is not a case of chaos. This is not system that is unpredictable. It is a system that’s very predictable, we just don’t have basically enough accuracy about the current state of the Milky Way and Andromeda,” Sawala explained to the AP.
Rescue at the South Pole
NASA recently announced the winners of The South Pole Safety Challenge. The challenge allowed the public to design technology for recovering astronauts in hard to reach areas of the moon.
The public was asked to develop lightweight, easy to use rescue equipment. It had to be designed to transport crew weighing 755 lbs. and capable of travelling 1.24 miles and across slopes up to 22 degrees.
The challenge received 385 unique ideas from 61 countries. Five winners were selected. NASA, in a press release described the winners as the following:
- VERTEX by Hugo Shelley – A self-deploying four-wheeled motorized stretcher that converts from a compact cylinder into a frame that securely encases an immobilized crew member for transport up to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers).
- MoonWheel by Chamara Mahesh – A foldable manual trolley designed for challenging terrain and rapid deployment by an individual astronaut.
- Portable Foldable Compact Emergency Stretcher by Sbarellati team – A foldable stretcher compatible with NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity spacesuit.
- Advanced Surface Transport for Rescue (ASTRA) by Pierre-Alexandre Aubé – A collapsible three-wheeled device with a 1.2 mile (2 kilometer) range.
- Getting Rick to Roll! by InventorParents – A rapidly deployable, tool-free design suited for functionality in low gravity settings.
NASA aims to test these devices on future missions. The winners all split a $45,000 prize.
Satellites mimic eclipse
Two European satellites are mimicking an eclipse in deep space. Developed by the European Space Agency, the Proba-3 twin satellites launched December 4, 2024.
On Monday, June 16, the ESA released the first images sent back from the probes of an artificial eclipse. The images will be used to study the sun’s corona and solar flares.
“To see the corona, we needed to align the two spacecrafts and the sun. And so the two spacecrafts should be aligned with the precision below (one) millimeter. And the distance between the two spaces is 144 meters. So it’s really, really, really technological achievement, a technological breakthrough,” said Dr. Andrei Zhukov, lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope, to the Associated Press.
One satellite blocks the sun as if it is the moon during an eclipse, while the other takes pictures. The fake eclipse lasts six hours, much longer than a real one on Earth which lasts just minutes.
Zhukov anticipates an average of two solar eclipses per week being produced for a total of nearly 200 during the two-year mission, yielding more than 1,000 hours of totality.
“We hope to learn a lot about the physics of the solar corona close to the solar surface to see how the solar wind is accelerated and also to see the origin of coronal mass ejections, which can disturb human technology when they arrive at the Earth,” Zhukov said.
