Collision ahead thumbnail
Collision ahead

Mark your calendar: Analysis of data from the Hubble Space Telescope shows that, about four billion years from now, our Milky Way galaxy is destined for a gigantic collision with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as shown in this illustration. —NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger