Right now in the high eastern sky you can see something that's truly out of this world.

In fact, it's the farthest thing you can see with the naked eye — the Andromeda galaxy.

It's a strain — or impossible — to see in areas of heavy city lighting. You really have to be in the countryside with a pitch-black sky on a moonless night to spot it. Look for a faint misty patch of light just above the constellation Andromeda. Binoculars or a small telescope will really bring it in.

Our nearest next-door galaxy is about 2.5 million light-years away. Now, if you're new to this column, a light-year is defined as the distance light travels in one year. The speed of light is about 186,300 miles per second, and one light-year equals more than 5.8 trillion miles. If you do the math, that would put the Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 times 5.8 trillion miles away!

The Apollo spacecraft, the one that took three days to travel to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, would take more than 500 billion years to reach the Andromeda galaxy!

Galaxies are vast islands of billions of stars. They come in all shapes and sizes.

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which is not named after the candy bar, is thought to have as many as 500 billion stars arranged in a giant spiral more than 100,000 light-years in diameter. All the stars we see in our sky are members of the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, in really dark skies, you can see a faint band of milky white that stretches roughly from the northeast to the southwest sky. That's the main plane and the thickest part of our galaxy.

The Andromeda galaxy is a larger spiral galaxy than the Milky Way, with about 1 trillion stars in a diameter of more than 200,000 light-years. In fact, Andromeda is the largest spiral galaxy within 50 million light-years.

Just as it is with our Milky Way, all the stars in the Andromeda galaxy are orbiting around a super massive black hole at Andromeda's center. This mother of all black holes in this part of the universe is more than 140 million times more massive than our sun. It's the glue that gravitationally holds Andromeda together.

When I gaze upon the stars in our own Milky Way galaxy, and when I look through the telescope at other distant galaxies, I can't help but think about other planets like our own going around other stars. We know now for a fact there are more than 440 extra solar planets out there, but all of these planets with their parent stars are comparatively close by. Think of how many more planets are out there throughout our hometown galaxy and how many of them could support life.

As you gaze upon the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy, contemplate this fact: Even if there's only one star in a billion in Andromeda with planets capable of life, there would still be thousands and thousands of worlds hidden within our galactic neighbor.

Here's one more thing about Andromeda: Every second, our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are getting about 50 miles closer to each other.

So mark 4 to 6 billion years from now on your calendars or smart phones. That's when it's believed the Milky Way and Andromeda are expected to cosmically collide!

When that happens, the Milky Way and Andromeda will mix together to form one humongous galaxy!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his website www.lynchandthestars.com.