Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, did not always have its iconic spiral shape. Rather, it acquired its shape through a process called “galactic speciation.”
This illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. In this image, representing Earth's night sky in 3.75 billion years, Andromeda (left) fills the field of view(photo credit: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger)ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF
