A collision between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, long considered inevitable, may be in question, astronomers say.

Astronomers have mapped out a huge invisible region of the galaxy next door. Hubble has detailed the size and structure of Andromeda's gas halo – and found that it’s already bumping up against ...

Andromeda and the Milky Way may completely miss each by more than 500,000 light-years, meaning no merger. (Image credit: NASA/ESA) The team was able to present different scenarios of what could ...

There’s now a 50-50 chance this galaxy will crash into ours. Astronomers have long thought that the Milky Way is headed for an inevitable crash with its neighbor, Andromeda.

(Andromeda is about 110,000 light-years across, while estimates for the Milky Way's girth put it at between 100,000 and 200,000 light-years.) Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now.

Andromeda is about 260,000 light-years wide, according to NASA, making it the largest galaxy in the Local Group.However, its mass is roughly comparable to or even less than that of the Milky Way ...

Astronomers have long thought the Milky Way was destined to merge with the nearby Andromeda galaxy. The aftermath of this predicted clash has been dubbed “Milkomeda,” and researchers predicted ...

Andromeda XXXV is only about 20,000 times more massive than our Sun—very small, even for a satellite galaxy. For comparison, the Milky Way’s mass is about 1.5 trillion solar masses, and the ...

The Andromeda Galaxy is speeding toward us, but it will take 4 billion years to get here. This artist’s concept shows the night sky from Earth in 3.75 billion years: Andromeda is much closer ...

A collision between our Milky Way galaxy and its largest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, predicted to occur in about 4.5 billion years, has been anticipated by astronomers since 1912.

Because Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, its proper motion is very hard to measure. Indeed, no-one had ever done it until the STScI team spent 10 years monitoring the galaxy, which is also ...