[CarlJoseph (Carl)]

Hi Baddad,

Quite a bit is know about galaxy mergers although a lot of it is through computer simulations. Galaxies though do collide and impact each other, and it's not uncommon. Take a look at the Arp Catalog for examples.

Originally Posted by Baddad

What may happen to the stars themselves?
After all they are separated by distances of light years magnitude.
Does it all become like a giant solar system where planets fly off like asteroids?

You're correct, the stars are so far apart in a galaxy that they are very unlikely to collide. When two spiral galaxies collide for example, the stars end up on all sorts of random orbits which resemble a blog of an elliptical galaxy.

There are a few online simulations which you can view and some you can also play with ... Chris Mihos has published some information on his site about this topic (although it's a little out of date now) ... http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/backgrnd.html

There's also this applet which you can use to run your own simulations ... http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/

Enjoy!
Af.