I do remember reading about the merger once on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision
Should any stars actually hit one another that would be stellar collision right?
It's absolutely fascinating stuff, thank-you for taking the time to explain it all.
It would be fascinating to know the scale of that image, as in how far apart in light years are each of the stars which appear so densely packed together. The distances involved are simply mind numbing.