When Galaxies Collide

What will hap­pen 3 to 5 bil­lion years from now, when our galaxy will like­ly merge with the Androm­e­da galaxy? The (sound­less) video above will give you a quick pre­view. This footage from the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope offers mul­ti­ple views of recent galaxy col­li­sions. It’s worth not­ing that when galax­ies “col­lide,” they don’t lit­er­al­ly hit one anoth­er. Rather they pull on one anoth­er, as the New Sci­en­tist explains. And the grav­i­ta­tion­al force is enough to do some seri­ous vio­lence — the kind cap­tured in the footage above.