This post, which is the latest in my series on cosmology, is about the ultimate fate of the Universe, a subject which has engaged scientists, philosophers and religious leaders for centuries. There are many possible endings to the Universe, but the outline I will present here, which is sometimes called “The Big Freeze”, is the most commonly held view based upon the known laws of science.
4 billion years in the future – Milky Way and Andromeda merge
As readers of my previous posts will recall, the Sun is one of around 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and the Milky Way is one of over 200 billion galaxies in the observable Universe (ref 1). Our galaxy, together with the large spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda and around 50 smaller galaxies form a collection of galaxies called the the Local Group.
The Andromeda galaxy – the nearest large galaxy to…
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