Colliding stars???

[Craig.a.c (Craig)]

I read in an Astronomy magazine recently about the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. It stated that stars are orbiting the black hole at a high rate of speed and that on rare occasions some stars will be thrown out of our milky way. I was wondering what would happen if two stars were to collide together? Would they merge to form a larger star or would the collision cause them to explode?

[Jazza (Jay)]

In the unlikely event they actually collide, they would most probably pass through each other, tearing themselves apart in the process. More likely, one would be 'captured' by the more massive one, and they would start to orbit each other, one of them potentially 'eating the other'.

The odds aren't very high however
More likely still is that one will have its motion/path changed by the gravitational effect of the other.

There's some really good simulations around... it's pretty cool stuff
Jay

[astroron (Ron)]

It was thought till only a few years that stars never collide because of the large distances between them, then "Blue Straglers stars where found in Globular Clusters, these stars are thought to be stars that have merged/collided and rekindled star formation in an otherwise cluster of very old stars.
The chances of stars colliding in the interstellar medium are very slim indeed.