07/05/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CPhoSn1a3/
The Andromeda galaxy is heading toward us at a quarter of a million miles per hour.
In 5 to 6 billion years, it will arrive.
What happens when two galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars each collide is not what intuition suggests. The stars themselves — so vast in number but so tiny relative to the distances between them — will pass through each other like two swarms of bees merging. The odds of any individual star actually hitting another individual star are essentially zero.
But the gas and dust between the stars will interact catastrophically.
It will heat up. It will compress. Star formation will ignite across both colliding galaxies in a furious burst of new stellar birth. The sky — from wherever Earth or its remnants happen to be — could be on fire.
The Milky Way and Andromeda as we know them will cease to exist.
In their place: a new galaxy. Astronomers have already named it Milkomeda — a massive elliptical without spiral arms, a merged entity born from the death dance of two.
We'll have front row seats.
If anyone is still around to watch. 🌌