The Antennae

We can see our future in the stars. Not our individual futures, mind you, but the future of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

The future of the Milky Way is visible in a pair of colliding galaxies known as the Antennae. Today, we see them as two bright galactic cores flanked by long streamers of stars that look like the antennae of an insect.

Before the collision began, the individual galaxies were big, beautiful spirals like the Milky Way. A few hundred million years ago, though, the two galaxies passed close to each other for the first time. Their gravity pulled out stars, forming the “antennae.” Gravity also squeezed giant clouds of gas and dust, giving birth to many millions of new stars.

The galaxies looped around each other, then swung even closer together than the first time. This second encounter triggered the birth of even more stars - a process that’s continuing today.

About 50 million years from now, the cores of the two galaxies should merge. Over time, the galaxies will