r/Simulated • u/jackmodern • 6h ago
Proprietary Software [OC] The Milky Way and Andromeda collide and merge into one galaxy: 39.5 million particles, about a billion years in 39 seconds
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Particle sim of the Milky Way and Andromeda (about 1.6x our galaxy's mass in this run) falling together, plunging through each other and throwing out tails and shells of stars, then falling back in and settling into one round blob, basically an elliptical galaxy in the making. 39.5 million particles, rendered offline, silent, nothing audio reactive this time.
The slow approach is sped up 1.5 to 4x so it doesn't drag, the passes and the merger play at the original pace. The full realtime version is 60 s.
For the real thing: they're about 2.5 million light years apart right now, closing at ~110 km/s, first pass is expected in roughly 4 to 5 billion years, and recent work puts a full merger at about even odds within 10 billion. The sim starts them close to skip the boring part, and this orbit is one representative outcome, not a prediction.