But it seems likely that in a mere 3 billion years, our neighboring galaxy Andromeda and the Milky Way will fall together and have a close collision. They will likely merge and be reborn as a single giant elliptical galaxy over the course of another billion years or so. How might this metamorphosis play out and what might you see if you looked up at night over the next 4 billion years! The space between stars is so vast compared to their size that during a galaxy collision no individual stars actually collide with one another. So our sun and its family of planets will be taking a passive but exciting ride through the pair of coalescing galaxies and take on a spectacular view of the unfolding disaster in relative safety.
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The view from far reveals an exquisite ballet of mutual annihilation and transformation into an elliptical galaxy. The Milky Way is seen coming in from the bottom in a face-on and edge-on view. After the interaction, long tidal tails of stars are flung out in open spiral patterns from both galaxies by the strong gravitational tides during the interaction. While separating, the two galaxies develop detailed spiral structure and then fall back for a second collision finally to merge. The mutual annihilation of the two galaxies leads to a big splash showing up as a complicated system of loops and ripples that represent turning points of stellar orbits. The two galaxies finally settle down into a single elliptical galaxy surrounded by remnant debris of their violent interaction.
Video credit: John Dubinski & John Kameel Farah; Text credit: John Dubinski
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