Just watched a time-lapse of the Andromeda Galaxy colliding with the Milky Way and it blew my mind

I came across this simulation by NASA from a few years back, and it shows how in about 4.5 billion years our galaxy and Andromeda will start merging. The photos they use to predict it are from Hubble and ground telescopes over decades. I always thought it would be a huge crash, but apparently stars are so far apart that most won't even hit each other. The sky would look totally different though, like a giant swirl of stars. Has anyone else seen those composite images of merging galaxies from the Hubble archive?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_daniel1mo ago

Stars are actually pretty dense in galactic cores, odds of a collision there are real.

laura2111mo ago

Hubble's got some wild shots of those galactic train wrecks. Those composite images really show the swirls and tidal tails stretching out, it's like the galaxies are dripping stars into space. Makes you wonder what our night sky would look like if we were around in 4.5 billion years.