PARIS: Astronomers said on Wednesday that for the first time they have confirmed what ignites quasars, the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe, which put galaxies in their `death throes`.

These celestial behemoths form when two galaxies smash into each other, the astronomers said, warning that this could be the Milky Way`s fate in a few billion years.

Quasars are one of the most extreme objects in the universe, some shining with the brightness of a trillion stars despite being packed into the space of our Solar System.

They sit in the heart of galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes, requiring a huge amount of gas to be so staggeringly bright. But exactly what creates quasars has been a matter of debate since their discovery in the 1950s. In a new study, an international team of researchers said they have `clear evidence` that quasars are triggered by two galaxies colliding, which releases the vast amounts of energy needed.

Clive Tadhunter, an astrophysicist at the University of Sheffield in the UK and one of the study`s authors, said that this could be the fate of the Milky Way one day. The nearby Andromeda Galaxyis `coming directly towards us at about 200 kilometres a second,` he said. It will collide with the Milky War in roughly five billion years, and `we could get a quasar` as a result, he said.-AFP