A new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that the Milky Way galaxy is on a collision course with neighboring galaxies, including Andromeda, in about 2.5 billion years. Researchers from the University of Queensland and Australian National University have been tracking the evolution of the Milky Way’s home galaxy using a collaborative survey called “Delegate.”
According to Dr. Sarah Sweet, lead researcher on the project, the study found that two similar spiral galaxies, NGC5713 and NGC5719, are about 3 billion years ahead of the Milky Way and Andromeda in their merging process. The researchers observed that these galaxies appear to be “dancing” together with their smaller dwarf satellites rotating around them.
The scientists believe that this merger may have helped shape the structures we see in our galaxy’s satellite system today, such as the beautiful, coherent planes of stars and gas. Without such a merger, it’s possible that galaxies might remain randomly distributed, lacking the organized patterns we observe.
By studying the Milky Way’s likely future, researchers can refine models of galaxy evolution, dark matter, and cosmic structure, ultimately gaining a better understanding of the universe itself. The study is part of a larger survey that aims to confirm its findings in several papers.
The researchers are also testing whether the Milky Way and Andromeda Local Group is a typical example or an anomaly in the broader cosmos. They want to know if the observed placement of dwarf galaxies in satellite planes around their hosts will be consistent with simulations, which currently show tension between local observations and cosmological models.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-08-dwarf-galaxies-milky-future.html