Only Two Cosmic Disasters Are Certain

The sardonic proverb “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” can now be recast for the cosmos.
The inevitable collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way is one of only two astronomical predictions with which we can be absolutely certain. The other is the death of our Sun.
The eventual galaxy collision is the result of the [...]

A Sun-like star ends its life by ejecting layers of gas into space.The sardonic proverb “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” can now be recast for the cosmos.The inevitable collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way is one of only two astronomical predictions with which we can be absolutely certain. The other is the death of our Sun.The eventual galaxy collision is the result of the inexorable pull of gravity between two heavyweight “island universes,” each weighing over 1 trillion times the mass of our Sun.The Hubble Space Telescope’s detailed observations show that the Andromeda galaxy is heading straight toward us. Nearly 100 years ago, astronomers knew that Andromeda was coming this way, but they didn’t know if it would be a glancing blow or head-on collision. Hubble astronomers settled the question.Ever since the nuclear fusion processes ...