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Comment by lIl-IIIl | Hacker News Reader

The article:

>Such a collision would be devastating for both galaxies which would be destroyed, leaving behind a spheroidal pile of stars known as an elliptical galaxy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_...:

>The stars involved are sufficiently spaced that it is improbable that any of them will individually collide,[6] though some stars will be ejected.

Originally I thought thought those statements were contradictory, but I guess the first statement says the galaxies will be destroyed, and says nothing of the stars.

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"Galaxies would be destroyed" is extremely misleading hyperbole. Nothing gets destroyed; at most a relatively tiny proportion of the mass hits the central black holes or gets flung out.

They'll get "destroyed" as much as pouring two drinks into the same cup "destroys" them. Nothing gets destroyed, you just get an intermingled mix.

Once the elliptical is formed star formation stops for the most part so the galaxy slowly 'dies'

Muh spiral shapes.

It's like when your boss calls an emergency meeting to go over the latest company-wide BU reorganization like it's absolute pandemonium but you're just sitting there thinking about how you get paid the same salary to perform the same job with the same colleagues under the direction of the same manager. The total destruction of our entire galaxy is just that but in space.

Perfect analogy! I've sat through about 5 restructures already and I swear they use musical chairs to decide who's doing what this time around, while having no impact on my life whatsoever.

I was in a startup that was acquired by a big tech company and it went about like that. They made us use Windows for email and "business stuff". I continued to do all my real work on a low-budget Frankenstein computer under my desk that I think I was supposed to relinquish but I wasn't going to say anything and no one asked.

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