In his world-famous book, Beyond Good and Evil, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warned,
“And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”
Since Nietzsche was not fond of explaining his own aphorisms, many have debated exactly
what he meant by this statement, with most taking it to mean that the longer you spend
studying an unsettling, or evil thing, the more time that thing has to work on you and
your perception of the world.
This might help explain the PTSD-like symptoms of crime scene investigators, hardened against
humanity after years of inspecting grisly crime scenes.
Whatever Nietzsche meant in his book, just this year astronomers found that as they themselves
stared into the abyss of the cosmos, the abyss began to stare back in a very terrifying way.
One night this past October, European astronomers looking through new photos from the Hubble
Space Telescope were shocked by the discovery of what is perhaps the most unsettling galaxy
yet discovered.
The galaxy has been named Arp-Madore 2026-424, and has an uncanny resemblance to a human
skull.
The most prominent, and terrifying feature, is the two huge 'eyes' which seem to be staring
directly at Earth from millions of light years away.
AM 2026-424, or the Skull Galaxy, is actually two separate galaxies captured by Hubble in
the midst of a deadly head-on collision.
Galaxies collide all the time, but for two galaxies to run into each other almost perfectly
head-on is very rare indeed.
In this case the galactic cores haven't yet smashed into each other, and makes it look
as if the entire formation has two eerie glowing eyes.
Below the eyes clumps of stars form what looks like a skeletal nose and a mouth, and above
the eyes the stars thrown into a wild elliptical orbit around the new galactic core make the
entire formation look like a giant skull.
What's even stranger about the Skull Galaxy is the fact that it seems as if the two galaxies
involved in this deadly head-on collision were about the same size when they ran into
each other.
That's a very rare event, as typically larger galaxies swallow up smaller galaxies, and
equally sized galaxies rarely ever get a chance to collide.
The two galaxies that make up this new single galaxy haven't yet finished their merging
process though, and luckily for humanity it'll probably take another one to two billion years
for the formation to settle into a traditional flattened disk shape.
Unluckily for any life in those galaxies, things could get very weird over the next
two billion years.
That's because even though the likelihood of actual physical collisions between planets
and stars in the two galaxies are extremely unlikely, the effect of gravity could very
well become extremely unpredictable.
With such a dramatic shift in the galaxy's center of gravity, stars and their accompanying
systems could be flung into wild new orbits.
Add in the effects of gravity from new stars that make up the 'other' galaxy and traditional
orbits could be thrown into potentially deadly loops.
You don't after all have to have a head-on collision between star systems to spell doom
for life on a planet.
The influence of gravity from other stars around yours could be enough to nudge comets
and asteroids into new orbits, and they themselves could now be put into an intersecting orbit
with your home planet.
That's bad news for anyone who doesn't like extinction level impact events, which is pretty
much most life- except crocodiles and sharks which can apparently survive literally anything
except mankind.
Star systems could also find themselves completely orphaned from their home galaxy, or the newly
formed one!
That's right, gravitational perturbations of orbits could be so great, that a star could
very well be flung completely free of the galaxy, doomed to wander the black void between
galaxies forever- or at least until it dies.
For life on that star system it might sound like great news- after all that life would
now be basically protected forever from the effect that any neighboring stars could have
on them.
No more random supernovas to obliterate your planet, or deadly gamma ray bursts that sanitize
the surface of your world of all life.
No more orbital disturbances from nearby stars that fling asteroids and comets into new,
deadly orbits.
For intelligent life though, it might be a very depressing turn of events, because being
orphaned from your galaxy also means that you'll never get a chance to explore another
star system.
No chance of ever discovering alien life that doesn't exist within the realm of your parent
star.
One day your species will be guaranteed to die, because you'll be unable to avoid the
extinction brought about by the death of your star by simply moving to another star system.
Truly, a depressing turn of events.
Yet scientists believe that there's very many of these orphaned star systems, and even within
our own galaxy, many orphaned planets as well.
Imagine that the earth got slingshotted straight out of the solar system, and forced to wander
space between stars with no sun of its own.
That's the fate of many so-called rogue planets, or as some call them, dark planets as they
have no light from a sun to shine on them.
Skull Galaxy is a terrifying sight to behold, and we can thank our lucky stars- perhaps
literally- that our own galaxy is safe from such chaos.
Yet our home, the Milky Way, is itself on a deadly collision course with our nearest
galactic neighbor- the Andromeda galaxy.
Located 2.5 million light years away, Andromeda is steadily speeding towards us at a rate
of about 68.3 miles per second (110 km per second).
We aren't quite on a head-on collision course with Andromeda, though that will matter very
little in our ultimate fate.
The two galaxies are going to fly by each other so close that in relative terms, one
could reach out and touch the other.
The massive gravity of the two galactic cores will then yank each galaxy back towards the
other after initially speeding by, and the two galaxies will begin orbiting around a
common center of gravity, gradually but inexorably falling into each other.
During the first fly-by, entire chunks of galaxy will be ripped out of each participant,
with stars flung every which way.
The traditional spiral arms of the Milky Way will be bent and deformed, and the extremities
will likely be completely amputated.
Some of those stars will fall into new orbits within the Milky Way- Andromeda system, while
others will be flung out into deepest space, to die a cold, lonely death in the darkest
depths of space.
As the galaxies spin nearer and nearer to each other, they'll accelerate, and gravitational
perturbations will become even more pronounced.
Gas and dust clouds will be sent hurtling into each other, spawning a new age of star
formation and creating titanic stellar nurseries.
Other stars might be sent directly into each other, obliterating any life in their systems.
Yet other stars will suffer as terrifying a death as those orphaned into intergalactic
exile- they'll be flung into the newly merged supermassive black hole at the heart of a
brand new galaxy.
Luckily all of this is pretty far away though, and given mankind's treatment of its own planet,
we're sure to be long extinct before any of this comes to pass.
Still, while today we look out into the night sky and are shocked by the skull-like grimace
of two galaxies merging into one, perhaps one day aliens far away will look at our galaxy
merging with Andromeda and shudder in fear at the terrifying image such an incredible
cosmic event might create!
If you liked this video go watch our video on the “Most Extreme Planets In The Galaxy”
right now!
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