Cosmic cataclysm: What will happen when Andromeda crashes into the Milky Way?

For comparison, our solar system currently sits about 26,000 light-years or 152,844,260,000,000,000 miles from the galaxy’s centre.

Miss Lavender said: “There’s even a 12 percent chance that the Sun could be ejected from Milkomeda completely, left to spend an eternity drifting lonely through intergalactic space.

“Alternatively, Cox and Loeb calculate that during the second close passage between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy there is a three percent chance that Andromeda could steal the Sun and the solar system from the Milky Way, plucking us out with its gravity.

“Of course, we’d only be swapping galaxies for a relatively short while, as the eventual merger will bring us back together again.”