The nearby galaxy Andromeda is speeding towards us at 250,000 mph. It has a long way to travel — about 2.5 million light-years — but it’s likely to crash into the Milky Way in about 4 billion years.
When the galaxies do meet, it will make for a pretty sight. On approach, the Andromeda galaxy will warp the band of the Milky Way across our sky. Eventually, the galaxies’ cores will merge.
Unfortunately, life as we know it won’t exist on Earth as this spectacle plays out. By then, the sun will have started to run out of fuel, leading it to expand to the orbit of Venus. That will make Earth about as hot as Mercury is now.
However, NASA has created step-by-step illustrations depicting what those future night-sky views would look like as the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide.
Read more: Business Insider
