Milky Way's Head On Collision

This animation depicts the collision between our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy. Hubble Space Telescope observations indicate that the two galaxies, pulled together by their mutual gravity, will crash together about 4 billion years from now. Around 6 billion years from now, the two galaxies will merge to form a single galaxy. The video also shows the Triangulum galaxy, which will join in the collision and perhaps later merge with the Andromeda/Milky Way pair.

Visualization Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers (STScI)
Simulation Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Besla (Columbia University), and
R. van der Marel (STScI)