Solar system moving

[Mocha Chief]

I read somewhere that our solar system is constantly moving through space. So my question is this: Is it possible for our solar system to collide with another solar system?

[Davin]

In just a few billion years, our galaxy will "collide" with Andromeda. So yes, it is possible, but not for a very long time.

[Ali]

I wonder what happens when galaxies collide.  Does everything start orbiting around the larger of the stars?  Or maybe everything starts orbiting around whatever the closest largest object is, so some of our planets could become moons.  Do stars orbit?  I always think of them as sort of fixed points.

[Recusant]

I wonder what happens when galaxies collide.  Does everything start orbiting around the larger of the stars?  Or maybe everything starts orbiting around whatever the closest largest object is, so some of our planets could become moons.  Do stars orbit?  I always think of them as sort of fixed points.

Stars in pretty much all galaxies (there are several types of galaxy) orbit around the galactic center. As for colliding galaxies, there are some great photos from the Hubble telescope:

Source

There are some animated simulations of colliding galaxies created using supercomputers. A couple of examples: 1. Andromeda/Milky Way collision (simulation)  2. NASA supercomputer simulation of colliding galaxies

If you can watch those, you'll see that both galaxies lose most of their stars, and eventually merge into a smaller single galaxy.

This topic reminds me of one of our members (SSY) who seems to have drifted away; he was studying this sort of thing at university, and I think he would have made some excellent contributions to this thread. Oh well.

[Tank]

I read somewhere that our solar system is constantly moving through space. So my question is this: Is it possible for our solar system to collide with another solar system?

The solar system is moving in the same way a speck of dust would move on a rotating record. It wouldn't hit other specks of dust on the same record as they are not moving relative to each other. Does that make sense?

[Ali]

I wonder what happens when galaxies collide.  Does everything start orbiting around the larger of the stars?  Or maybe everything starts orbiting around whatever the closest largest object is, so some of our planets could become moons.  Do stars orbit?  I always think of them as sort of fixed points.

Stars in pretty much all galaxies (there are several types of galaxy) orbit around the galactic center. As for colliding galaxies, there are some great photos from the Hubble telescope:

Source

There are some animated simulations of colliding galaxies created using supercomputers. A couple of examples: 1. Andromeda/Milky Way collision (simulation)  2. NASA supercomputer simulation of colliding galaxies

If you can watch those, you'll see that both galaxies lose most of their stars, and eventually merge into a smaller single galaxy.

This topic reminds me of one of our members (SSY) who seems to have drifted away; he was studying this sort of thing at university, and I think he would have made some excellent contributions to this thread. Oh well.

Thank you for posting those pictures and videos; they are really cool!