
Hubble captures new image of two colliding galaxies - sndean
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/03/hubble-captures-new-image-of-two-colliding-galaxies
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woliveirajr
> (...) destined to spend millions of years colliding into each other before
> finally merging into a galaxy all their own.

> (...) about 350 million light-years from Earth.

So, they are already together, the problem is that light is just _too_ slow so
we cannot see it yet. :)

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netcraft
Same thing is going to happen to us (the milky way) and Andromeda in about 4
billion years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision)

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clayt6
For more on the Andromeda/Milky Way collision:
[http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/b/astronomy/archive/2018/02/08/t...](http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/b/astronomy/archive/2018/02/08/the-
great-galactic-mashup-what-can-we-expect.aspx)

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ChuckMcM
"... an exciting galactic collision is underway." Seriously? Think about the
civilizations that are about to be wiped out, the life forms that no one will
ever know about, the ginormous black hole that will just get bigger.

Ok, so I'm only kind of serious. In the scheme of things all things change. I
expect time is limited to less than a megayear for the systems on the edges of
the arms like ours is on the Milky Way.

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mikeash
I don’t think a galactic collision is a particularly serious event for life.
The stars are so sparse that the galaxies basically pass through each other.
Their large scale structure is disrupted, but that won’t kill anything living
in a solar system.

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briga
If anything I suspect a galactic collision would be a driver of increased star
formation, and thus a catalyst for galactic recycling and chemical evolution
within that Galaxy. It could even be something that leads to higher rates of
biological evolution.

And like you said, the distance between the stars is what prevents this from
being a total catastrophe.

