The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromed
The earliest known photograph of the Great Andromeda "Nebula" (with M110 to the upper right), by Isaac Roberts (29 December 1888)
Largest Mosaic of Andromeda by Hubble with details: (a) Clusters of bright blue stars embedded within the galaxy, background galaxies seen much farther away, and photo-bombing by a couple bright foreground stars that are actually inside our Milky Way; (b) NGC 206 the most conspicuous star cloud in Andromeda; (c) A young cluster of blue newborn stars; (d) The satellite galaxy M32, that may be the residual core of a galaxy that once collided with Andromeda; (e) Dark dust lanes across myriad stars.
Processed image of the Andromeda Galaxy, with enhancement of H-alpha to highlight its star-forming regions
Illustration showing both the size of each galaxy and the distance between the two galaxies, to scale
The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way, where Earth is located. It consists of two collections of galaxies in a "dumbbell" shape; the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies form
Andromeda Galaxy
…Galaxy and a higher mass for the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy has a diameter of about 46.56 kpc (152,000 ly), making it the largest member of the Local Group of galaxies in terms of extension. The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies have about a 50% chance of colliding with each other in the next 10 billion…
Local Group of galaxies, including the massive members Messier 31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and Milky Way, as well as other nearby galaxies. The center of the group is located between the two major galaxies.
Distribution of the iron content (in logarithmic scale) in four neighbouring dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way
Overview of the structure and trajectory of the Local Group