Comins quoted in Kennebec Journal’s ‘Backyard Naturalist’ column

Neil Comins, a University of Maine professor of physics and astronomy, was quoted in the Kennebec Journal’s latest “Backyard Naturalist” column. In “M31 and the limits of visibility,” the author writes that decades ago, it was observed that Andromeda galaxy, or M31, is moving in our direction. Recently, some astronomers have found it’s likely the Milky Way and M31 will collide some 4 billion years from now, the article states. “The statistical likelihood that the sun will strike another star is extremely low ([though] not zero),” Comins said when asked about the predicted collision. “It is more likely that the gravitational attractions of passing stars from M31 will cause the Earth and other objects in the solar system to change orbits. Depending on how elliptical our orbit became, that could severely affect life on Earth. “That is, if there is any life here in 4 billion years,” he wrote, “which is shortly before the sun will end the life-supporting phase of its evolution.”