The chance our galaxy will collide with another is 100%. We are heading directly for our neighbouring spiral galaxy, Andromeda, and will collide with it in around 4.5 billion years.
When galaxies collide they essentially pass straight through one another and out the other side. A few unlucky solar systems may be disrupted but the vast majority will have no ill effects and one hell of a beautiful night sky. After the initial pass through, gravity will reverse the motion and they’ll pass through again, and again, and again, in a vast, cosmically slow dance… each time slowing a little more until eventually they stabilize into one larger galaxy.
Galaxies colliding all the time. Normally the space between stars in each galaxy allows for almost no stars to collide with each other. I’m sorry I dont know the numbers off the top of my head. During this process the galaxies form an almost pretzel like shape.
The milky way galaxy in a short time for galaxies ( billions of years) is going to collide with the much larger andromeda galaxy. If you could see andromeda with no milky way stars in the way it would appear about 2 times the size of the moon.
There’s a 100% chance that our galaxy is in fact going to *merge* (collide isn’t necessarily the correct term) with the Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.
As for what happens when galaxies merge? Not a whole lot, actually. Galaxies are mostly empty space, so there’s almost no chance that anything will actually collide. Some stars might be ejected from the new galaxy, but mostly, the 2 galaxies will just merge to form one larger galaxy, and any life that might exist in that galaxy at that time won’t notice anything except the slow change in the night sky over millions of years.
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