When galaxies collide, do stars in one galaxy ever collide with stars in the other?
Galaxies frequently collide with each other. The Milky Way, for example, is colliding with a couple of smaller galaxies right now. Since the Milky Way is so much larger than these galactic small fry, it will simply incorporate their stars into its own body.
Yet galactic collisions rarely produce head-on wrecks between individual stars. Even when two galaxies ram together, the distance between stars is enormous. Yet stars can suffer ill effects from the collisions. They can be thrown into new orbits, or even thrown clear of their parent galaxies into intergalactic space.
While galactic collisions rarely destroy stars, they often create them. As vast clouds of gas and dust in merging galaxies slam together, they can create thousands or even millions of new stars.
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