Astronomy Picture of the Day -- M31: The Andromeda Galaxy

NASA ^ | June 26, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit & Copyright: Lorenzo Comolli]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One.

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[wastedyears]

If I ever have a daughter, I want to name her Andromeda.

[Impy]

There are lots of good astronomy related names.

[schm0e]

yawn. they all look the same. ;)

[schm0e]

quark is my favorite.

[going hot]

I was under the impression that she was 200 thousand light years away, not two million.

[Jack Hydrazine]

According to this wiki it is 2.5 million light years away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are supposed to collide in about 3.75 billion years.

[FreedomStar3028]

2.5 million or so, actually.

million, thousand....in light years. It makes no difference to us really.

Hopefully one day we can travel faster than light. But......I doubt it.

[wastedyears]

Callista is another one.

[dr_lew]

Of course, at 2.5 million ly away, it is very close on the scale of our own galaxy, which is 100 thousand ly across ... only 25 times our galactic diameter. The moon is 30 earth diameters distant from earth, which is comparable. In fact, the Andromeda Nebula appears much larger in the sky than the moon! However it is very faint, and only the core is visible to the naked eye.

“Thinking is the best way to travel” - The Moody Blues

[fish hawk]

been looking at that picture my whole life. nothings changed.

[dr_lew]

been looking at that picture my whole life. nothings changed.

... except the picture!

[dr_lew]

Well, here's a scan from Timothy Ferris' GALAXIES, which was knock your socks off stuff in 1982. ( That smudge line is a mar in my copy of the book. ) You could say it's not substantially different from the APOD, but it is an inferior image.

[fish hawk]

have any idea when that picture was taken? I have some pretty old astronomy books and they all have that picture, Aloha from Maui

[dr_lew]

It’s just credited to “Hale Observatories”

[eccentric]

The picture is best when combined with facts about the subject. millions of light years is an awesome distance

[xp38]

Are there any images which delete the milky way stars and you only see the Andromeda galaxy by itself?

[Don W]

When I hear the name Andromeda, this

is who I immediately think of.

[Conan the Librarian]

Upside down

:)

A neat trick to pull on newcomers is to tell them you are going to show them Andromeda, but, actually show them the larger of the satellites, M32.

THEN show them the big guy. And it’s 2.5 Million LY away!