Andromeda Galaxy
Videos
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 Andromeda–Milky Way collision is a galactic collision that may occur in about 4.5 billion years between the two largest galaxies in the Local Group—the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.
Andromeda Galaxy
…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 years, merging to potentially form a giant elliptical galaxy or a large lenticular galaxy. With an apparent magnitude of 3.4…
This series of photo illustrations shows a possible predicted merger between the Milky Way Galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy.