Milky Way Galaxy Doomed: Collision with Andromeda Pending

The answer is yes, the Milky Way will collide with its bigger neighbor. It's most likely. Recent Hubble Space Telescope images show that the center of M31 may be on a collision course with the center of our home galaxy. There is a good chance that the central parts of the two galaxies will miss, but that their outer halos will become entangled. Over the next few billion years, the two galaxies will become bound, and eventually merge to become one large elliptical galaxy. The sky of a world in the distant future is depicted by a combination of images. The future of the Local Group of Galaxies is likely to be an active topic of research for a long time.

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Explanation: Do dragons fight on the altar of the sky? Although it might appear that way, these dragons are illusions made of thin gas and dust. The emission nebula NGC 6188, home to the glowing clouds, is found about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar). Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed in that region only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star near the bottom edge. This impressively wide field of view spans over 2 degrees (four full Moons), corresponding to over 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.