Colliding...Someday

"VV 340, also known as Arp 302, provides a textbook example of colliding galaxies seen in the early stages of their interaction. The edge-on galaxy near the top of the image is VV 340 North and the face-on galaxy at the bottom of the image is VV 340 South. Millions of years later these two spirals will merge — much like the Milky Way and Andromeda will likely do billions of years from now. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) are shown here along with optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue). VV 340 is located about 450 million light years from Earth."

 

I wonder if there is intelligent life somewhere in there (high probability given the sheer number of star systems involved) that knows this is coming.

 

I also wonder if there is some distant observer who has labeled the Milky Way "VV 340 North" and Andromeda "VV 340 South", and just wrote an article commenting on our eventual collision.