The view from the Earth in far future. Astronomers have now confirmed that our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is destined for head-on collision with its neighbor Andromeda Galaxy. But no worries that happens in 4 billion years! M31 or Andromeda Galaxy is now about 3 degrees in our sky, from the distance of 2.5 million light years, before the collision it will be a huge spiral dominating half of the sky, appearing over 200 times larger than the full moon. But if humankind still exist this view will be seen from another planet, not the Earth which is already too hot and totally barren to live with the aging sun. More on this news: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/scien ... llide.html (see the animation that shows how the galaxies will meet in a gravity dance and finally merge to a giant elliptical galaxy). Another illustration: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... 0/image/a/