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Has there ever been an observed star collision? If there hasn't, what might occur?
That is not the kind of reference I was looking for.Wallace said:There is http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q179.html" which shows why stars do not collide in normal circumstances. It points out that collisions would be more common in dense regions, like galactic centres, but this is still time scales of millions of years at best for extremely dense regions where we would have little hope of observing anyway.
Wallace said:Collisions between stars are extremely rare. I remember we were asked to make a rough calculation of the frequency of collisions way back in undergraduate astronomy and from memory it was something of the order of 1 collision in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in the total age of the universe. Correct me if I'm wrong here anyone! In any case it's very rare and I don't know of any observed collisions although the origin of some Gamma Ray Bursts are unknown so it's possible I guess (though probably unlikely, I'm hazy on this area) that the odd collision could cause one of these.
On the other hand, most stars live in multiple star systems where they orbit other stars. The most common is binary stars, two stars orbiting a common centre of mass. This is not because they have passed close to each other at some point but because they form together. Interactions between the two stars are common, since the radius of a star can change significantly during the course of the stars existence. Stars that previously were far enough apart to leave each other alone can then start to exchange mass between them and even merge together.
Binary interactions are thought to be the cause of many types of Novae and Supernovae.
So to sum up, independent stars essential do not happen to run into each other as they wiz around the galaxy but binary stars do interact with their neighbors in interesting ways. We observe this kind of 'collision' if you want to call it that all the time.
OK, I think you're missing the point here.Adamp.10 said:Well this is completely wrong... Although I don't know the exact probability of a star collision taking place, in an article I read they believed they were happening every 10 seconds. You have to realize how big the universe is, and how little we can observe. The only star collisions visible to man would have to be in our Galaxy, yet there are biliions of Galaxies...
tony873004 said:FWIW, considering stars not bound to each other, orbiting the galaxy in the Sun's neighborhood, the Sun has about a 71% chance of randomly passing within 1 solar diameter of another star once every 10^20 years.
Yeah, 10 orders of magnitude in fact. Or 10 billion times older than the universe is now. Or 10 billion times longer than an average sun-like star lives.Meithan said:You do realize that 10^20 years is orders of magnitude longer than the current age of the Universe, right?
Yes, it is possible for stars to collide. Although stars may seem small from our perspective, they are actually incredibly massive objects. When two stars are close enough to each other, their gravitational pull may cause them to merge and collide.
When stars collide, it can result in a variety of outcomes depending on the mass and speed of the stars. In some cases, the stars may merge and form a new, larger star. In other cases, the collision may cause a massive explosion called a supernova. It is also possible for the stars to pass each other without colliding due to their immense distances and speeds.
Star collisions are relatively rare events. In our own galaxy, the Milky Way, it is estimated that a star collision occurs once every 100,000 years. However, in other galaxies with higher densities of stars, collisions may occur more frequently.
It is highly unlikely for a star collision to directly affect Earth. The nearest star to Earth, the Sun, is about 93 million miles away, which is a safe distance from any potential collisions. However, a nearby star collision could potentially have indirect effects on Earth, such as causing changes in the distribution of matter and energy in the universe.
Yes, there have been several observed star collisions in our universe. One notable example is the collision of two neutron stars, which was detected by gravitational wave observatories in 2017. This collision also produced a burst of gamma rays and was observed by telescopes on Earth, providing valuable insights into the process of star collisions.