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Local Mergers
There is overwhelming evidence that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has swallowed up a number
of smaller dwarf galaxies in the last few billion years. And in fact, in another 5
Billion year, We will MERGE with the Andromeda Galaxy! This may look something like
this when it happens:
The Merging of Andromeda with the Milky Way
Computer simulations of this collision are shown here
Clearly, galaxies do not evolve in a pristine environment! Moreover, our Milky Way galaxy contains stars and gas which once belonged in another galaxy, which had a different mass and star formation history. This all has a way of 'muddying' the waters, so to speak, when it comes to understanding the history of our galaxy.