That was pretty much what I was thinking, I went to see a lecture by Margaret Gellar about a year ago and I can't help thinking that it would make a pretty interesting experiment to do some computer models with galaxies colliding multiple times, you might be able to explain some of our more odly shaped galaxies?

- Elaina Hyde

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Joseph Biello wrote:
> Actually collision is the word that astronomers use, but Sean is right, the
> stars mostly won't hit each other. Galaxies can, nontheless, collide (i.e.
> they exchange gas and stars as they pass close to, or through one another).
>
> I've never heard that we may have hit Andromeda in the past (we're both about
> the same size and a collision would have done some wicked damage to the disk).
> However, if you take a look at the large and small Magellenic clouds (our
> nearest "galaxy" neighbours) it truly looks like they have collided with us in
> the past - and will do so again long before we get near Andromeda.
>
>
> --
> Joseph A. Biello