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if the sun, which is huge compared to the earth, were the size of a pea, the nearest star would be ~120 miles away to scale. this is a typical distance between stars and it’s why when andromeda collides with the milky way there is little chance of stars colliding.

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I’ve heard, I think many years ago, this fact there is not much risk or star collisions when galaxies collide. But I wonder, given more recent knowledge of how common exoplanets are, if there is a more significant risk of disruptions to the planetary systems that surround the stars. These planetary systems are much larger than the stars themselves.

Stars are still sparse enough in both galaxies that most stars still wont have much effect on most other stars' planetary systems. On the scales of the galaxies a star system isn't much bigger than that system's star. A star affecting another's planetary system would pass so close it and the host star would likely form a gravitational relationship and would be considered a "collision". Space is stupid big and stupid empty.

I really like this demo to show how empty our solar system is: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem....

Or the RL version in Sweden: http://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/

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