To: PatrickHenry
There are more likely things to worry about (than our sun hitting something).
Interesting that in a galaxy collision the galaxies can become distended or intertwined.
But star collisions during the process would be extremely rare. It's just statistically unlikely that stars would hit something.
If our sun were an orange in New York, then the nearest star would be an orange in Los Angeles. (for scale).
But two galaxies in scale might be more like two footballs eight to ten feet apart (Milky Way and Andromeda). So galaxy collisions are relatively common.
To: edwin hubble
An ancient SF series of novels (by Doc. EE Smith, I believe) began with a galaxy collision. Perhaps it was the Lensman series, I've forgotten. The collision of galaxies with all the near fly-bys of the stars -- according to the theory prevelant in the 1930s -- is what caused the planets to form. There was some ghastly evil species in the other galaxy that dominated things, and their rivals, the good guys who were on "our" side, and some human hero, Kimball Kinnison, who had been bred for hundreds of generations. I think Spartacus was one of his ancestors.
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