Brace yourself. The Milky Way galaxy is due for a collision with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy, but no need to mark the calendar - the big event won't happen for at least another 4 billion years, according to dpa. Analysis of data from the Hubble Space Telescope released Thursday by NASA shows the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years away, will collide with the Milky Way as the gravity of the two galaxies pulls them closer together. "After nearly a century of speculation about the future destiny of Andromeda and our Milky Way, we at last have a clear picture of how events will unfold over the coming billions of years," said astronomer Sangmo Tony Sohn of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Scientists have long known that the two galaxies were growing nearer, at a speed of around 400,000 kilometres per hour, but it had been unclear whether they would smash together, graze past each other or have a near miss. The exact path of the Andromeda galaxy had been unclear, but the Hubble made it possible to measure the direction the galaxy was moving, astronomers said. A collision would meld the two spiral galaxies into a new, elliptical galaxy, likely pushing Earth's solar system into an entirely new location, but not destroying it. Unlike colliding cars, galaxies include so much largely empty space that objects within them would mostly pass by each other. Stars rarely crash directly into each other, and the galaxies will merge into one with stars being rearranged within the new system.
