NASA: The night skies will look like THIS when Andromeda galaxy crashes into the Milky Way

When Andromeda slams into the Milky Way, a trillion new stars will light up the night skies above Earth. The cosmic merger, according to NASA, will result in a head-on collision on an unimaginable scale. Andromeda will warp the shape of the Milky Way and our Sun is likely to be punted to a different part of the galaxy. Before the comic event fully unfolds, the entirety of Andromeda will dominate the nighttime view from Earth. NASA said: “The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. “It is likely the Sun will be flung into a new region of our galaxy, but our Earth and solar system are in no danger of being destroyed.” NASA astronomers announced the incredible forecast in May 2012, following a “painstaking” investigation by the Hubble Space Telescope. The orbital observatory measured the movements of Andromeda, or M31, as it slowly edges towards our galaxy. READ MORE: Hubble telescope just snapped the BIGGEST fireworks in the galaxy When viewed at night, the galaxy is a small and hazy path of light that is indistinguishable from a regular star. But in about 3.75 billion years, the galaxy’s spiral features and the glow of its stellar gas will be revealed in plain sight. Sangmo Tony Sohn of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore said: “After nearly a century of speculation about the future destiny of Andromeda and our Milky Way, we at last have a clear picture of how events will unfold over the coming billions of years.” Andromeda is falling towards the Milky Way because both galaxies are pulling at one another with their gravities. Vast quantities of invisible dark matter in-between the two galaxies are further facilitating the slow-motion collision. NASA said: “The scenario is like a baseball batter watching an oncoming fastball. "Although Andromeda is approaching us more than 2,000 times faster, it will take four billion years before the strike. “Computer simulations derived from Hubble's data show that it will take an additional two billion years after the encounter for the interacting galaxies to completely merge under the tug of gravity and reshape into a single elliptical galaxy similar to the kind commonly seen in the local universe.” READ MORE: What is the mysterious dark vortex NASA has just found on Neptune? Thankfully, there is too much empty space in-between individual stars for the galactic merger to be cataclysmic. When the galaxies collide, stars will simply pass one another without ever encountering. The merger will, however, affect the orbits of the stars, sending them on brand new trajectories. According to NASA, this will cause our own solar system to be pushed back into a farther region of the galaxy.