The Andromeda Galaxy is dwelling to a number of attention-grabbing objects, together with globular clusters, planetary nebulae, and supernovae. It is likely one of the most distant, but simply seen objects to the attention. Also called Messier 31, it’s a spiral galaxy positioned roughly 2.5 million light-years away from Earth within the constellation Andromeda. One of the crucial hanging options of Andromeda is its shiny central area, generally known as the nucleus, which is dwelling to a supermassive black gap. Other than this, the galaxy additionally has spiral arms wealthy in mud and gasoline.
At this time’s NASA Astronomy Image of the Day is the Andromeda Galaxy. In accordance with NASA, the Andromeda Galaxy is twice the scale of our personal Milky Manner Galaxy, spanning throughout practically 260,000 light-years and containing over 1 trillion stars.
Discovery of Andromeda Galaxy
Since Andromeda is likely one of the most simply seen celestial objects, it’s unclear who found it. Nonetheless, the primary written commentary of the Andromeda Galaxy could be present in Persian astronomer Abd al-rahman al-Sufi’s The Guide of Mounted Stars which dates again to the yr 964.
The image was captured by astrophotographer Abdullah Al-Harbi.
NASA’s description of the image
How far are you able to see? Probably the most distant object simply seen to the unaided eye is M31, the good Andromeda Galaxy, over two million light-years away. With no telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy seems as an unremarkable, faint, nebulous cloud within the constellation Andromeda. However a shiny white nucleus, darkish winding mud lanes, luminous blue spiral arms, and shiny purple emission nebulas are recorded on this gorgeous fifteen-hour telescopic digital mosaic of our closest main galactic neighbor.
However how do we all know this spiral nebula is actually so far-off? This query was central to the well-known Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920. M31’s nice distance was decided within the Twenties by observations that resolved particular person stars that modified their brightness in a means that gave up their true distance. The consequence proved that Andromeda is rather like our Milky Manner Galaxy — a conclusion making the remainder of the universe rather more huge than had ever been beforehand imagined.
