Table of Contents
FACTS ABOUT THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY.
We are part of the Milky Way galaxy, a cluster of stars and planets and other astronomical bodies orbiting a giant black hole in the center. But our galaxy isn’t the only one in existence in the universe.
There are billions of galaxies that make up the observable universe, some so far away that the light from them still haven’t reached the earth.
The closest galaxy to our own is the Andromeda galaxy. Massive in size and carrying three times as many stars as the Milky Way, Andromeda galaxy is truly impressive patch of the cosmos.
It is so huge that it can be observed with the naked eye from earth. Andromeda galaxy is part of the constellation of Andromeda from where it gets its name.
It is right now set on a collision course with the Milky Way and is expected to collide several millions of years down the line in an epic cosmic shuffle. Here we list some of the amazing facts about the Andromeda galaxy for your enjoyment.
Andromeda galaxy is also known as Messier 31.
Andromeda galaxy is also sometimes mentioned as Messier 31 or M31 in short. The name is derived from Charles Messier, a French astronomer who was instrumental in cataloguing the massive galaxy.
Messier documented a plethora of objects in the Northern Hemisphere which came to be collectively known as the Messier Objects or the Messier Catalog.
Charles added M31 to his catalog in 1764 and by the end of the year he had accumulated more than 38 objects including the Crab Nebula. By 1781, he cataloged 103 objects, 40 of which were discovered by Messier himself.
M31 – Andromeda – Deep Sky Videos.
Video by DeepSkyVideos
The galaxy is named after the Andromeda constellation.
In the event that you turn upward into the northern night sky between Cassiopeia’s “W” asterism and the Great Square of Pegasus, you will discover the constellation Andromeda.
The star cluster was named after the legendary princess Andromeda, the spouse of the Greek saint Perseus. The constellation was first cataloged by the Greek stargazer Ptolemy in the subsequent century, and it is additionally known by the names of Chained Maiden, Persea, or Cepheis.
The Andromeda constellation is likewise home to different other deep sky objects. Andromeda is situated outside the galactic plane, and it doesn’t contain any groups or nebulae of the Milky Way; it contains other observable galaxies, however.
The most well-known of these cosmic systems is, obviously, the Andromeda Galaxy, which gets its name from the enormous constellation. The constellation is best-known for the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a standout amongst the most popular objects in the sky that can be seen with the unaided eye.
Andromeda galaxy is larger than the Milky Way.
In stargazing, a light-year is a normally utilized unit to gauge distance, however a few space experts like to utilize a unit called the parsec. When alluding to something bigger, they use kilo-parsecs, which are equivalent to 1,000 parsecs, and mega-parsecs, equivalent to one million parsecs.
The Milky Way measures around 100,000 light-years or 30 kilo-parsecs over. This may appear to be huge, however it is fairly little when contrasted with different systems.
The Andromeda Galaxy has a surmised distance across of 220,000 light years, which is more than twofold of that of the Milky Way. It is the biggest cosmic system in the Local Cluster.
On the off chance that it were bright enough, the Andromeda Galaxy would seem bigger than the Moon in the sky, even with it being a lot more far away.
The cosmic system is 2.5 million light-years from Earth, while the Moon is just 384,400 kilometers (238,900 mi) away—that should give you an idea of exactly how enormous the galaxy truly is.
Andromeda galaxy has an estimate of 1 trillion stars.
The Milky Way is evaluated to have somewhere in the range of 100 billion to 400 billion stars, however the Andromeda Galaxy is expected to house around one trillion stars.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed an enormous and uncommon populace of hot, splendid stars as a part of those one trillion.
Blue stars are ordinarily hot, youthful stars, however the blue stars found in the Andromeda Galaxy were maturing, Sun-like stars that have cast out their external layer of materials and uncovered their blue-hot centers.
These stars are scattered all through the focal point of the galaxy and are most splendid in UV light.
Andromeda galaxy has a double nucleus core.
Video by djxatlanta
Another fascinating thing about the Andromeda Galaxy is that it contains a double nucleus. Both of the light-crests contain a couple of million thickly packed stars, and they are isolated by just five light-years.
The primary core is known as P1, while the second is known as P2. A few cosmologists have confirmed that the core isn’t generally two pieces yet rather only one unbalanced gathering of stars that are orbiting a supermassive black hole.
The stars in P1 pursue curved orbits around the black hole and invest the vast majority of their energy shining in external locales, causing the zone to seem brilliant.
The second core exists on the grounds that the stars bundle together when moving toward the black hole.
The Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.
There is a colossal collision in the making between the Andromeda Galaxy and our own.
The Andromeda Galaxy is making a beeline for the Milky Way at 400,000 kilometers for each hour (250,000 mph), which is quick enough to circle the Earth in only six minutes.
It is evaluated that it will take about 3.75 billion years for the impact between the two cosmic systems to happen. So what will happen to Earth after this collision? Experts believe that Earth will most likely endure the collision.
They accept our planet will be generally safe on the grounds that the systems are comprised of for the most part empty space. Earth could get a truly unfathomable show out of the crash, however, and it would be seen all through the sky for a long time.
The two cosmic systems will keep on pulling at one another for a considerable length of time until the focal black holes in each of the universe draw near enough to converge as one.
When they have consolidated, our solar system will be in an altogether unique kind of world known as an elliptical galaxy. If not for the Sun gulping the Earth in around five billion years, the sky would seem brilliant during the evening in the elliptical galaxy.
The Andromeda galaxy has a magnitude of 3.4.
In space science, the absolute magnitude is the evident size that an object would have in the event that it were at a standard luminosity separation from us.
This permits the general brilliance of an object to be contrasted with no respect with its separation. The Andromeda Galaxy has an apparent mag of 3.4, which is one of the most brilliant of any of the Messier objects.
On a moonless night, the Andromeda Galaxy is noticeable to the unaided eye, notwithstanding when seen from zones with moderate light contamination.
It might seem multiple times more extensive than the Moon when shot through an enormous telescope, however just the more brilliant focal region is obvious to the unaided eye when utilizing binoculars or a littler telescope.
The Andromeda galaxy is full of black holes.
Andromeda Galaxy – Facts and its central black holes.
Video by Anton Petrov
The Andromeda Galaxy once had nine known black holes, yet that number went up to 35 in the year 2013. Space experts observed 26 new black holes in the system, which is the biggest number of black holes found in a cosmic system at any point that isn’t our own.
The greater part of those new black holes have around five to seven times the mass of our Sun. Seven of the black holes were found inside 1,000 light-years from the focal point of the galaxy.
Astronomers hope to discover a lot more of such black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy in the near future. In 2017, two supermassive black holes were found. They’re the nearest orbiting pair at any point recorded.
The two could disastrously crash in under 350 years and converge as one enormous black hole.
The two are at present 0.01 light-years separated, which is only a couple of hundred times the separation of the Earth from the Sun.
Not exclusively is the quantity of black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy noteworthy, however the manner in which they are moving is astonishing.
It has around 450 Globular groups or clusters.
Globular groups are thickly packed accumulations of antiquated stars, and they contain several thousand or even millions of stars.
These globular groups can help decide the age of the universe or even assist in making sense of where the focal point of a system is.
Stargazers have recognized 200 globular groups in the Milky Way, and around 450 have been seen in the Andromeda Galaxy.
The number could be a lot higher for the Andromeda Galaxy, however, on the grounds that the furthest areas of the cosmic system have not been looked into enough.
In the event that the globular groups of the Andromeda Galaxy have indistinguishable scope of sizes from those in the Milky Way, at that point the genuine number of bunches in the world could be somewhere in the range of 700 to 2,800.
Andromeda galaxy was first thought to be a nebula.
A nebula is a huge haze of gas, dust, hydrogen, helium, and plasma, and it is where stars are conceived.
Far off galaxies have regularly been confused with these huge clouds. In 1924, stargazer Edwin Hubble declared that the winding cloud Andromeda was really a cosmic system and that the Milky Way was by all account not the only galaxy in the universe.
Hubble found various stars in the Andromeda Galaxy, including Cepheid variable stars. Cepheid variable stars change from splendid brightness to a dim haze and can be utilized to quantify distance.
He made sense of how far away these stars were, and that helped him ascertain that the Andromeda Galaxy was 860,000 light-years away, which is in excess of eight times the distance of the most distant stars in the Milky Way.
This demonstrated Andromeda was in reality a cosmic system and not a cloud as first suspected. Hubble later proceeded to archive another couple dozen cosmic systems.
Bonus fact: There are multiple dwarf galaxies inside the Andromeda galaxy.
The Andromeda Galaxy has around 450 enormous globular groups, the most monstrous being Mayall II (G1), which is about 130,000 light-years from the cosmic system’s core, comprising of in excess of 300,000 old stars, and is twice as splendid as our Milky Way’s most luminous globular bunch, Omega Centauri.
What’s more, there are at any rate 14 dwarf galactic systems orbiting the Andromeda Galaxy, the most brilliant of which are M32 and M110, both found a little over 2.65 million light-years from Earth, and unmistakable utilizing even a basic telescope.
In spite of the fact that Andromeda’s globular bunches are about of similar size as its dwarf spheroidal cosmic systems, the former have virtually no Dark Matter and so are considered different objects.
Related questions.
How many stars are there in the Andromeda galaxy?
It is predicted that there are roughly about one trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy, scattered throughout its massive area. They often are a part of smaller galactic systems within the Andromeda or are individual stars that have their own planetary systems just like our solar system.
Is there life in Andromeda galaxy?
The Andromeda galaxy is a spiraling galaxy just like our Milky Way having a double nucleus core around which the astronomical bodies present within that galaxy orbit.
There is estimated to be one trillion stars in that galaxy and by the same estimation, several trillions of planets. Therefore, it is statistically possible that one of them might have life.
But there are certain considerations we need to undertake. If there is indeed a planet in the Andromeda that has the biological compounds that can foster life, it is not necessary that that life form would be carbon based as is the case with earth.
Their life form can be based entirely on a different element which makes it very hard for us to know what to look for when we are looking for signs of life.
Also, it should also be considered that perhaps life on this other planet is just beginning and therefore they haven’t evolved enough for us to take notice. Or maybe, they’ve evolved so much that we are too insignificant for them to take notice.
Whatever the case may be, while there are possibilities of life being present in one of the planets in Andromeda, we still haven’t found any conclusive evidence of it yet.