A Collision of Galactic Proportions
The Andromeda Galaxy is on a 4- to 5-billion-year collision course with the Milky Way, and new findings using Gaia data suggest that the two galaxies may have already begun the process of exchanging stars. Extremely fast-moving “hypervelocity stars” appear to have traversed the vast distance between them.
This computer simulation, courtesy of NASA, shows the Milky Way and Andromeda as their orbits evolve over the next 7 billion years.
