|
Credit & Copyright: Jordi Coy
Explanation:
What is the oldest thing you can see?
At 2.5 million
light years distant, the answer for the unaided
eye is the
Andromeda galaxy,
because its photons are 2.5 million years old when they reach you.
Most other apparent denizens of the night sky --
stars, clusters, and nebulae --
appear as they were only a few hundred to a few thousand years ago,
as they lie well within our own
Milky Way Galaxy.
Given its distance, light from
Andromeda
is likely also the farthest object that you can see.
Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy dominates the center of the featured
zoomed image,
taken from the Sahara Desert in
Morocco last month.
The featured image is a combination of three background and
one foreground exposure --
all taken with the same camera and from the same location
and on the same calendar day -- with the foreground image taken during the
evening
blue hour.
M110, a
satellite galaxy of Andromenda is visible just above and to the left of M31's
core.
As cool
as it may be to see this neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way with your own eyes,
long duration camera exposures
can pick up many faint and breathtaking details.
Recent data indicates that
our Milky Way Galaxy
will collide and combine with the
similarly-sized Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Andromeda galaxy - M 31
Publications with words: Andromeda galaxy - M 31
See also:
- NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda
- APOD: 2024 September 8 Á M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
- APOD: 2023 November 13 Á Andromeda over the Alps
- The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda
- APOD: 2023 August 23 Á The Meteor and the Galaxy
- APOD: 2023 March 22 Á M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
- APOD: 2023 January 17 Á Unexpected Clouds Toward the Andromeda Galaxy