'Time Gate' reveals the scene of a galaxy containing Earth turned into a monster

What happened to the Earth-containing galaxy billions of years ago has been reproduced by two galaxies, NGC 1512 and NGC 1510.

The Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope (Blanco for short) located in Chile has captured an extremely rare moment, when the dwarf galaxy NGC 1510 gradually "enters the tiger's mouth". 

It is about to collide with NCG 1512, a much larger spiral galaxy, with the inevitable outcome of which NGC 1510 will be swallowed up, merging with the massive galaxy.

The moment when two galaxies are about to collide, in which the large galaxy will swallow the small galaxy

According to Science Alert, this is a prime example of galaxy merger: galaxies are located far apart in the universe, but they are also constantly moving and sometimes colliding. It can be a complex and fierce interaction when two galaxies of the same size collide and gradually merge, or it can be a swallow when a large galaxy collides with a small galaxy.

This has happened many times in the past of the Milky Way, the galaxy containing the Earth. With a diameter predicted to be around 100,000-180,000 light-years, the Milky Way is a "monster" among galaxies.

To reach its current size and number of stars, the Milky Way may have swallowed at least 16 smaller congeners, previous studies have revealed.

The moment that Blanco captures is like a portal in time, helping Earthlings to see directly what happened to the "monster" containing the Earth. In the future, the Milky Way may not be so lucky as the next collision will be with Andromeda - Andromeda - a galaxy of similar size.

According to SciTech Daily, it is the Blanco's own Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a state-of-the-art instrument designed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) project, a partnership between the US, Australia, Brazil, UK, Germany, and West Spain and Switzerland, helped document this rare phenomenon.