![\"Dancing](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/dancing-dwarf-galaxies.jpg\" "\\"A")
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A high-resolution color image showing the central galaxies NGC5713 and NGC5719 taken by the Hyper Suprime-Cam at the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Credit: Professor Helmut Jerjen<\/p>\n
A cosmic dance could be the future of the Milky Way as it tracks a course to collide with neighboring galaxies, a University of Queensland survey has found. The paper is published<\/a> in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.<\/p>\n Dr. Sarah Sweet from the School of Mathematics and Physics is leading “Delegate,” a collaborative survey with the Australian National University’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, among others, which aims to understand if the evolution of Earth’s home galaxy is typical of what is seen in other parts of the universe.<\/p>\n “The Milky Way will merge with Andromeda and their respective smaller dwarf galaxies in the next 2.5 billion years and while there has been a lot of research into what’s happening in our Local Group, we don’t know how typical it is,” Dr. Sweet said.<\/p>\n “We studied two similar spiral galaxies that are about 3 billion years ahead of the Milky Way and Andromeda in merging.<\/p>\n “This paper shows these galaxies\u2014NGC5713 and NGC5719\u2014combine as if they were dancing with the closely located dwarf satellites rotating around them.<\/p>\n “Without such a merger, the galaxies might remain in a randomly distributed cloud, not arranged in beautiful, coherent planes like those around the Milky Way and Andromeda.<\/p>\n “This may offer our clearest look yet at how structures like the Milky Way’s satellite system form, and how they will evolve.<\/p>\n “Understanding our galaxy’s likely future helps us refine models of galaxy evolution, dark matter<\/a>, and cosmic structure and beyond that, it gives us perspective.<\/p>\n “We are part of a much larger cosmic story, one that unfolds over billions of years, involving dances of galaxies and the shaping of the universe itself.”<\/p>\n