Atoms-for-Peace Galaxy Collision

Explanation: Is this what will become of our Milky Way Galaxy? Perhaps if we collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years, it might. Pictured above is NGC 7252, a jumble of stars created by a huge collision between two large galaxies. The collision will take hundreds of millions of years and so is effectively caught frozen in time in the above image . The resulting pandemonium has been dubbed the Atoms-for-Peace galaxy because of its similarity to a cartoon of a large atom . The above image was taken recently by the MPG/ESO 2.2 meter telescope in Chile . NGC 7252 spans about 600,000 light years and lies about 220 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Bearer ( Aquarius ). Since the sideways velocity of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is presently unknown, no one really knows for sure if the Milky Way will ever collide with M31 .