Here's an interesting bit of astronomical info:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20981994

That Galaxy is approximately 212 million light years away? That's a very, very long way indeed.

Light will travel 5,865,696,000,000 miles in a year (= one light year) so 212 million times that is a truly great distance?

The thing is, a lot of these astronomical "researchers" are really just having fun indulging their interests as the expense of someone else aren't they?

It's all very interesting looking in to the depths of the Universe but what's the point? It takes us ages to get as far as the Moon never mind anywhere in inter-stellar space?

The money spent on non-productive star-gazing would surely be better spent on attempting to find a better (and survivable) propulsion system coupled with a more practical spacecraft. That is, if we really need to venture in to Space at all?

Andromeda will eventually collide with the Milky Way so peering at some Galactic collision that happened over 200 million years ago isn't going to help or change matters is it?