Evidently, our Galaxy is Growing Beyond Speed of Sound

The Milky Way Galaxy, where we are sheltering today is not stagnant, but growing. In fact, now the size continues to expand rapidly. The findings were presented by Cristina Martinez-Lombilla, a doctoral candidate at the Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Island.

He and his team presented the findings at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference in Liverpool, England on Tuesday (3/4/2018). Martinez-Lombilla argues that the Milky Way galaxy actually grows at speeds that exceed the speed of sound because there are new stars that formed quickly in it.

"Our work shows that the visible part of the Milky Way is gradually increasing in size, along with the formation of stars on the outskirts of the galaxy," he said as quoted by Inverse.

Milky Way Galaxy itself is a spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000 light years, although researchers still have difficulty measuring the growth of galaxies directly because we are in the middle. So, Martinez-Lombilla and her team used another spiral galaxy as a guide.

By measuring light coming from light blue stars, along with their vertical movement, these researchers were able to calculate their average movement rate from where they were born. Based on that, researchers found that galaxies such as the Milky Way extend about 1,100 mph or 1,1770 km per hour or 1.4 times the speed of sound at sea level on Earth.

In addition, the researchers also predicted a cosmic collision due to this gradual growth. Four billion years from now, the mighty Milky Way Galaxy will continue to collide with neighboring spiral galaxies Andromeda. These two spiral galaxies will later form a mega galactic called Milkdromeda.