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What happens when galaxies collide? A billion year gravitational waltz.
This computer simulation includes images from Hubble of actual galactic collisions at different stages.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers
Source: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=30686
Considering it takes 230 million years for the sun to orbit the Milky Way one time, my amateur opinion is that what these images represent would take place over the course of a long fucking time.
As far as getting pulverized by the collision - that’s unlikely, as the stars are so far apart within each galaxy, it’s unlikely many, if any stars or planets would directly touch another. But I imagine all sorts of life would evolve and die off within that timeframe, all without the perspective to appreciate what’s happening at the cosmic scale.
This article has some photos of what the sky would look like when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide in 4-6 billion years, if that weren’t long after our atmosphere is boiled off by our own star: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda–Milky_Way_collision
Considering it takes 230 million years for the sun to orbit the Milky Way one time, my amateur opinion is that what these images represent would take place over the course of a long fucking time.
As far as getting pulverized by the collision - that’s unlikely, as the stars are so far apart within each galaxy, it’s unlikely many, if any stars or planets would directly touch another. But I imagine all sorts of life would evolve and die off within that timeframe, all without the perspective to appreciate what’s happening at the cosmic scale.
This article has some photos of what the sky would look like when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide in 4-6 billion years, if that weren’t long after our atmosphere is boiled off by our own star: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda–Milky_Way_collision