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weareallstarstuff:

Our Milky Way galaxy is on a collision course with its neighbor galaxy, Andromeda. In about 5 billion years, the two galaxies are set to merge in a giant cosmic train wreck.

To understand what’s in store for our galaxy, scientists have compiled a photo database of various colliding galaxies at different stages in their mergers.

“We’ve assembled an atlas of galactic ‘train wrecks’ from start to finish,” said astronomer Lauranne Lanz, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who presented a study on the research at a recent conference. “This atlas is the first step in reading the story of how galaxies form, grow and evolve.”[Stunning Photos of Galaxy Collisions]