Right now, a galaxy twice our size is heading this way.
Right now, a galaxy twice our size is heading this way. Andromeda — the most distant object most people can spot with the naked eye, sitting 2.5 million light-years out — is closing in at roughly 110 kilometres per second. In about 4.5 billion years, it will reach us. The two galaxies will pass through each other, their spiral arms tangling into something entirely new. Astronomers have even given the result a name: Milkomeda. But here is the twist that upends everything you imagine when you picture a galactic collision. Stars are so enormously far apart from one another that almost none will actually strike. No fireworks of stellar wreckage. Two galaxies merge, and the stars just drift past each other like ghosts. The violence is gravitational, not physical. Follow Deep Field Vault for more of the universe, one true fact at a time.