Although a lot of research indicates a potential collision be­­tween these two colossal structures—and certainly there’s been no shortage of reporting on the possibility over the years—­the galactic smashup is by no means inevitable. In fact, an international team of European scientists contests the idea. In a (not yet peer-­reviewed) research paper posted on the preprint server arXiv.org, the researchers show that when the effects of other nearby galaxies are taken into consideration, the chance of the Milky Way colliding with Andromeda is only about 50 percent. A decent likelihood, though nowhere near a sure bet.