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Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are surprisingly rare. Astronomers may finally know why.
(www.livescience.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Astronomy
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A computer simulation says spiral galaxies on a plane bang into each other and result in more elliptical galaxies. Ours hasn’t banged into anyone else yet, that the computer simulation knows about.
... So that infamous impending collision with Andromeda will take our spirals away?!
(Impending in a cosmological sense, so several million years at least IIRC)
Thousands of millions of years I think, and continuing for at least hundreds of millions before the bouncing stops
https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExbzcxZ2VudzQ0djQwZTB4MXdzbzdqdXQ4aDVkdWxkMnJ3amJndmlrbCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/rytLWOErAX1F6/giphy.gif
Actually our galaxy has had at least 1 other collision according to our current understanding.
https://www.wired.com/story/this-galactic-collision-shaped-the-history-of-the-milky-way/
But our spiral likely formed after.