Figure 23-30: Collision Between Andromeda and the Milky Way Computer simulations of the merger show what the night sky might look like from Earth. Two billion years from now, Andromeda will look much bigger, but the real collision will not begin until about 3.75 billion years from now. In 3.85 billion years from now, the sky will be engulfed in new star formation, which will have largely ended by 4 billion years, leaving the galaxies to completely merge. After 7 billion years, our solar system is expected to end up much farther from the galactic core than it is today.

(NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger)