What happens to earth when milky way sucks in another galaxy?

Answer 1

Leaving aside any religious predictions regarding armageddon, from a scientific perspective, the Earth will end in about 5 thousand million years time, when the Sun expands to become a red giant whose outer layers will extend as far as Earths orbit. The Earth will become part of the Sun.

Answer 2

If the Sun were to simply "go out", either gradually or suddenly, all of the water on Earth would quickly freeze solid. In fact, if the solar radiation from the Sun were to decrease by about 5%, the Earth would enter a new Ice Age, in which much or all of the Earth's oceans would freeze. This is highly unlikely.

However, when the Sun gets very old (in about 4 billion years or so) it will first expand in to a red giant phase, in which the Sun will expand to swallow up the planets Mercury and Venus, and probably Earth as well. This expansion will vaporize all of the liquids and other volatile materials on Earth, leaving it (if it survives at all) as a scorched cinder.

Answer 3

It will never die - unless the Universe collapses and or rips apart. Either way, it will never happen in our lifetimes (or anyone's lifetime for that matter). Galaxies are constantly having stars die and being born inside them. They are beautiful but hostile places for humans without the protection of our atmosphere & magnetosphere.

Answer 4

In terms of the other planets not a lot would happen. The only effect would be a sight change in there orbits due to loss of Earths gravitational pull.

The much greater effect would be to humanity. Even if we knew of the impending disaster 10 years in advanced. We evolved to survive on Earth. Colonising any other planet is beyond our capability at the moment.

We theoretically could send a hand full of people to Mars. There appears to be enough water on the planet to sustain a small community. They could synthesise all the materials they need to survive i.e. fuel, organic chemicals to eat etc. Given time we could even make Mars habitable through terraforming but it would take a long time.

A much better hope would be the satellite of Saturn, Titan. It is rich in hydrocarbons

such as ethane and methane and also water ice. We could synthesise everything we need to survive and fuel would never be a problem. The atmosphere on the surface is even similar in pressure to the surface pressure on earth. The only consideration is the temperature. An average surface temperate of −179 °C or −290 °F would be far too hostile for us to live but may be able to survive in heated buildings.

Answer 5

When a star dies, depending on its mass, one of three things can happen.

First, when nearing the end of their life, all stars start shedding off their outer atmosphere as a planetary nebula.

If what remains after the outer atmosphere has been shed is less than 1.4 solar masses, it shrinks into a white dwarf. A white dwarf is a relatively tiny object which about the size of Earth and is not massive enough for further compression to take place.

In larger stars, fusion continues until their iron core grows quite large (more than 1.4 solar masses) and they can no longer support their own mass. This core will suddenly collapse as its electrons are driven into its protons, forming neutrons and neutrinos in a burst of inverse beta decay. The shockwave thus formed by this sudden collapse causes the rest of the star to explode in a supernova.

Most of the matter in the star is blown away by the supernova explosion, forming nebulae, and what remains will be a neutron star. Neutron stars are very dense. They weigh an average of two solar masses but are only about 20 km (12 mi) in diameter.

In even larger stars, which leave a stellar remnant of more than 4 solar masses, there is nothing to stop the contraction, and the star collapses forever, creating a black hole. A black hole has a gravity so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Note: 1 solar mass is equal to the mass of the sun.

It is also worth noting that white dwarfs will slowly loose their energy, becoming black dwarfs until eventually, they are none existent.

Answer 6

This can't really happen. Using Einstein's E=mc2 with m = the mass of the Earth (6 x 1024 kg) and c = the speed of light (3 x 108 m/s), we get E = about 5 x 1041 J. In other words, if somehow the entire mass of the Earth were converted into energy, the total energy would be less than 1042 J. Googling around, I find estimates of the maximum supernova output from 1044 to 1046 J.

So, converting the entire mass of the Earth to energy (and there's no reasonable way I can imagine to do that) would only release somewhere between 1/100th to 1/10,000th of the energy of a supernova, depending on which number we use. - in other words, much less than 1%. I advise you to research the numbers yourself if you want a closer estimate.

So, taking your question literally, to explode the Earth with the force of a supernova, you would need some source other than the Earth itself to supply essentially all of the energy. The only reasonable source of that much energy I can think of is a real supernova, a large star exploding at the end of its lifetime. So, seems to me the only way this could happen would be if (really, really, really big if) the solar system some day crosses paths with a huge old star, and the gravitational interaction happens in just the right next-to-impossible, easier-to-win-the-lottery-a-zillion-times-in-a-row way to throw the Earth into the huge old star AND at just that instant, the star goes supernova.

In that case, because of the disruption of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, life on Earth would have been wiped out long before, and so there would be no one left aboard to worry about it - except possibly humans who have migrated to some other home. When the star blew up, the Earth's material would be vaporized and mixed in with the other stellar debris, and there would be no more Earth.

The atoms that used to be the Earth (and you and me and everyone and everything on it) would continue to exist. Perhaps with time, they would become a tiny part of a newly formed sun and solar system. After all, many of our atoms were made in stars and supernovae eons ago. You are made of stardust.

Answer 7

Explode is a very selective term. The process of exploding (like Superman's Krypton) will not happen to a planet. However a planet can be reduced to large chunks and have all the appearance of having exploded by:

• contact with another large body (collision)
• being disrupted by tidal forces

In either case the crust of the planet will be destroyed. Any life which as accumulated on the surface will be destroyed.

However, due to gravity, the chucks will often recombine to reform the planet. In the case of the Earth we did have a collision with a large Mars sized body (Theia) early in our history and were reduced to the Earth/Moon arrangement we have now.

Answer 8

Assuming the Earth isn't destroyed by something else, it'll be incinerated and then engulfed as the Sun expands through the red giant phase.

Answer 9

earth will be destroyed. The sun will most likely expand and engulf the entire solar system. I think this is about 4 billion years away... if we do not destroy earth our our selves first.

Answer 10

To the universe, not a whole lot; stars die all the time. To our planet, certain death. To the rest of the Solar System, destablizing and changes in orbit, and probable breaks away from it.