Milky Way headed for a crash

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Scientists are predicting that the Milky Way – the galaxy, not the candy bar – is going to crash head-on into the galaxy next door in about 4 billion years.

In other words, we’re sunk, in about 4 billion years.

Turning to comic books as our point of reference, scientists are wrong in their predictions every single week. Heck, the reason Superman came to the earth without the rest of his family is because his father Jor-el guessed wrong on the date the planet Krypton was going to explode, and didn’t have time to build a bigger rocket.

So don’t tell me there’s nothing to be concerned about. Today they’re saying it could be 4 billion years, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if tomorrow they changed that to 3 billion, and think of the panic that’s going to cause.

According to the Brainiacs (Another comic book reference. You’re welcome.) the collision will be “pretty violent as things go in the universe.”

“It’s like a bad car crash in galaxy-land,” said Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore (the Hubble telescope people).

How bad? They’ll be coming together at 1.2 million mph, well over the posted speed limit, in a collision that will take 2 billion years to complete. And when it’s all done, the Earth will have a much different night sky. So long, Big Dipper. Hello, Big Mess O’ Stars.

So what does this prove?

For starters, it reinforces the notion that things like comic books, science fiction and the Jetsons aren’t just entertainment. In fact, they can be highly instructive, provided they are taken with the proper (heaping) dose of paranoia.

And it also serves to illustrate that we puny humans aren’t in control of things nearly as much as we think we are. Taking the long view (about 4 billion years long) teaches us that it’s all out of our hands and we might as well just go ahead and enjoy our lives. Who knows? By the time this thing rolls around, Superman might be real and then all of our problems will be solved, except for the fact that by then the sun is likely to be so large and so hot as to make Earth uninhabitable. But that’s a problem for another comic book.


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Milky Way headed for a crash

0

Scientists are predicting that the Milky Way – the galaxy, not the candy bar – is going to crash head-on into the galaxy next door in about 4 billion years.

In other words, we’re sunk, in about 4 billion years.

Turning to comic books as our point of reference, scientists are wrong in their predictions every single week. Heck, the reason Superman came to the earth without the rest of his family is because his father Jor-el guessed wrong on the date the planet Krypton was going to explode, and didn’t have time to build a bigger rocket.

So don’t tell me there’s nothing to be concerned about. Today they’re saying it could be 4 billion years, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if tomorrow they changed that to 3 billion, and think of the panic that’s going to cause.

According to the Brainiacs (Another comic book reference. You’re welcome.) the collision will be “pretty violent as things go in the universe.”

“It’s like a bad car crash in galaxy-land,” said Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore (the Hubble telescope people).

How bad? They’ll be coming together at 1.2 million mph, well over the posted speed limit, in a collision that will take 2 billion years to complete. And when it’s all done, the Earth will have a much different night sky. So long, Big Dipper. Hello, Big Mess O’ Stars.

So what does this prove?

For starters, it reinforces the notion that things like comic books, science fiction and the Jetsons aren’t just entertainment. In fact, they can be highly instructive, provided they are taken with the proper (heaping) dose of paranoia.

And it also serves to illustrate that we puny humans aren’t in control of things nearly as much as we think we are. Taking the long view (about 4 billion years long) teaches us that it’s all out of our hands and we might as well just go ahead and enjoy our lives. Who knows? By the time this thing rolls around, Superman might be real and then all of our problems will be solved, except for the fact that by then the sun is likely to be so large and so hot as to make Earth uninhabitable. But that’s a problem for another comic book.


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Share.

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Stay CURRENT with our daily newsletter (M-F) and breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox for free!

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By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact