Merge

What actually occurs when galaxies collide? Most heavenly bodies move away from each other. However, Andromeda, three times bigger than our Milky Way, is on a glide path certain to collide with our galaxy, but don't cash in your bitcoin just yet. It's billions of years away, relax.

But, imagine this: Andromeda has a trillion stars, Milky Way, 300 million stars. The galaxies will merge, lose their spiral shape, and reform to elliptical shape- but here's the mindboggling, impossible fact: the distances are so vast, any two stars actually colliding is extremely unlikely. A square dance of 1.3 trillion stars, and no galactic toes stepped on.

Space is that big. But many star casualties are flung off, out of their orbits, or drown in the relentless vacuum of the giant black holes that each galaxy has as its center. During the galaxies' merger, the two massive centers will be side by side, drawing in everything too weak to resist. Meanwhile, enjoy your Netflix.