Night Sky Andromeda Milky Way Galaxy
Photo credit: Tom Buckley-Houston
Andromeda’s Great Spiral Galaxy (M31) is located just 2.5 million light-years away and is the closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. It can be viewed with the unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, but because its surface brightness is so low, casual stargazers will not be able to appreciate the galaxy’s impressive extent in planet Earth’s sky. Read more for a video showing what may happen when our galaxies collide.



This collision is predicted to occur in about 4.5 billion years and since the stars involved are far enough apart, it’s improbable that any of them will individually collide. However, some stars will be ejected from the resulting galaxy, nicknamed Milkomeda or Milkdromeda. These types of collisions are actually somewhat common on a universal scale, as Andromeda, is believed to have collided with at least one other galaxy in the past.

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