Summary:
- The Milky Way galaxy, which contains our solar system, is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy, its closest major galactic neighbor.
- Astronomers estimate that the two galaxies will collide in about 4.5 billion years, although the actual merger process could take several hundred million years to complete.
- The collision will not destroy our solar system or the Earth, but it will dramatically reshape the night sky and the structure of the combined galaxy that will result from the merger.