Clusters Nebulae Galaxies

The Andromeda galaxy: All you need to know

  • Closest spiral galaxy: Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.
  • Visible without a telescope: It can be seen with the unaided eye on clear, dark nights.
  • Large size: The Andromeda galaxy is about twice the size of the Milky Way with roughly one trillion stars.

The large spiral galaxy next door

Although several dozen minor galaxies lie closer to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to ours. Excluding the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, visible from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, the Andromeda galaxy is the brightest external galaxy visible in our night sky. And, at 2.5 million light-years, it’s the most distant thing we humans can see with the unaided eye.

Note: The large spiral Triangulum galaxy is slightly more distant at 2.7 million light-years. Like the Andromeda galaxy, it’s a member of our Local Group of galaxies. And it’s sometimes visible to the eye also. But it’s turned face-on to us, and so has a low surface brightness. Compared to the Andromeda galaxy, it’s more challenging to see.

Astronomers sometimes call the Andromeda galaxy by the name Messier 31, or M31. It was the 31st on a famous list of fuzzy sky objects compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier (1730-1817). His catalog listed “objects to avoid” when comet-hunting. Nowadays, amateur astronomers seek out these objects with their telescopes and binoculars. They’re some of most beautiful deep-sky objects known.

Most Messier objects are star clusters or gas clouds in our Milky Way galaxy. But the Andromeda galaxy is a whole separate galaxy, even bigger than our Milky Way. In a dark sky, you can see that it’s big on the sky as well, a smudge of distant light larger than a full moon.

Images of M31 from our EarthSky community

Large white disk-shaped nebula with bright reddish spots, dark lanes and thousands of foreground stars.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Jeremy Likness in Newport, Oregon, captured this telescopic view of the Andromeda galaxy on July 9, 2024. Jeremy wrote: “It’s a galaxy so near it could be interacting with our stars. It’s so big and bright that you can photograph it with an ordinary camera. The Andromeda galaxy, named for the constellation it hangs out in, is located just off the edge of the distinct ‘W’ of Cassiopeia. I used a hydrogen-alpha filter to find the red emissions hanging out in the limbs of this barred spiral galaxy that is our neighbor.” Thank you, Jeremy!
Large white disk with glowing center, bright reddish spots, dark lanes and thousands of foreground stars.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Steven Bellavia in Mattituck, New York, assembled this impressive composite of the Andromeda galaxy on January 27, 2024. Steven wrote: “I decided to take my last 2 years of data on M31, the Andromeda galaxy, and put it all together. The star-forming regions appear as small red ‘knots’ in and beyond the spiral arms, and the collections of young, hot blue stars appear as blue regions. The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It’s about 2.5 million light-years from Earth.” Thank you, Steven!

When to look for it

From mid-northern latitudes, you can see Andromeda – M31 – for at least part of every night, all year long. But most people see the galaxy first around August or September, when it’s high enough in the sky to be seen from evening until daybreak.

In early September, begin looking for the galaxy in mid-evening, about midway between your local nightfall and midnight.

In late September and early October, the Andromeda galaxy shines in your eastern sky at nightfall, swings high overhead in the middle of the night, and stands rather high in the west at the onset of morning dawn.

Winter evenings are also good for viewing the Andromeda galaxy.

If you are far from city lights, and you’re stargazing during a moonless night during the late summer, or on any autumn or winter evening, it’s possible that you’ll simply notice the galaxy there in your night sky. But if you don’t manage to easily see it, you can star-hop to find the galaxy in one of two ways. The easiest way is to use the constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. You can also use the Great Square of Pegasus.

Use Cassiopeia to find the Andromeda galaxy

Star chart of constellations Cassiopeia and Andromeda with labeled Andromeda galaxy between them.
Here’s the technique most people use to find the Andromeda galaxy. Just be sure you’re looking in a dark sky. Look northward for the M – or W – shaped constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. Now locate the star Schedar in Cassiopeia. It’s the constellation’s brightest star, and it points to the Andromeda galaxy.

The constellation Cassiopeia is easy to find. Look generally northward on the sky’s dome for a pattern of stars shaped like the letter M or W. If you can recognize the North Star, Polaris – and if you know how to find the Big Dipper – be aware that the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia move around Polaris like the hands of a clock, always opposite each other.

Once you’ve found Cassiopeia, look for its star Schedar. In the illustration above, see how Schedar points to the Andromeda galaxy?

Or use the Great Square to find M31

Star chart with Great Square and Andromeda outlined, with labeled stars, and Andromeda galaxy.
Here’s another way to find the Andromeda galaxy. The constellation Andromeda can be seen as 2 streams of stars extending from one side of the Great Square of Pegasus. See the star Alpheratz? It joins Pegasus to Andromeda. Now notice the star Mirach, then Mu Andromedae. An imaginary line drawn through Mirach to Mu points to the Andromeda galaxy.

You can also star-hop to the Andromeda galaxy, using the Great Square of Pegasus. It’s a longer route. But, in many ways, it’s more beautiful.

You’ll be hopping to the Andromeda galaxy from the Great Square of Pegasus. In autumn, the Great Square of Pegasus looks like a great big baseball diamond in the eastern sky. Envision the bottom star of the Square’s four stars as home plate, then draw an imaginary line from the “1st base” star though the “3rd base” star to locate two streamers of stars flying away from the Great Square. These stars belong to the constellation Andromeda the Princess.

On each streamer, go two stars north (left) of the third base star, locating the stars Mirach and Mu Andromedae. Draw a line from Mirach through Mu Andromedae, going twice the Mirach/Mu Andromedae distance. You’ve just landed on the Andromeda galaxy, which looks like a smudge of light to the unaided eye.

If you can’t see the Andromeda galaxy with the eye alone, by all means use binoculars.

History of our knowledge of the Andromeda galaxy

Black and white detailed view of galaxy with its spiral pattern and satellite galaxies visible.
The Great Andromeda Nebula, photographed in the year 1900. At this point, astronomers couldn’t discern individual stars in the galaxy. Many thought this object was a cloud of gas within our Milky Way, a place where new stars were forming. Image via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

At one time, the Andromeda galaxy was called the Great Andromeda Nebula. Astronomers thought this patch of light was composed of glowing gases, or was perhaps a solar system in the process of formation.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that astronomers were able to resolve the Andromeda spiral nebula into individual stars. This discovery lead to a controversy about whether the Andromeda spiral nebula and other spiral nebulae lie within or outside the Milky Way.

In the 1920s Edwin Hubble finally put the matter to rest, when he used Cepheid variable stars within the Andromeda galaxy to determine that it is indeed an “island universe” residing beyond the bounds of our Milky Way galaxy.

Sphere with many galaxies inside it and one of them enlarged beside it.
Artist’s concept of the Local Group, a group of galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs. Image via Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Andromeda and Milky Way in context

The Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies reign as the two most massive and dominant galaxies within the Local Group of galaxies. The Andromeda galaxy is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which, in addition to the Milky Way, also contains the Triangulum galaxy and about 50 other smaller galaxies.

Both the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies lay claim to about a dozen satellite galaxies. Both are some 100,000 light-years across, containing enough mass to make billions of stars.

Astronomers have discovered that our Local Group is on the outskirts of a giant cluster of several thousand galaxies, which astronomers call the Virgo Cluster.

We also know of an irregular supercluster of galaxies, which contains the Virgo Cluster, which in turn contains our Local Group, which in turn contains our Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Andromeda galaxy. At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters are located within this Virgo Supercluster. Its diameter is thought to be about 110 million light-years.

And the Virgo Supercluster is thought to be one of millions of superclusters in the observable universe.

Part of a vast spiral, with cloudy, glowing arms of innumerable stars and dust lanes visible.
View larger. | A closeup of one of the spiral arm regions of the Andromeda galaxy. Image via NASA/ ESA.

Will the Andromeda galaxy collide with the Milky Way?

One of our readers wrote:

I’ve heard that the Andromeda galaxy will someday collide with our galaxy! Is that still a definite possibility?

A definite possibility describes much of what we know – or think we know – about the universe. As for the Andromeda galaxy and its future collision with our Milky Way: the first attempt to measure the radial velocity of this galaxy (its motion forward or back, along our line of sight) was made in 1912. After that, astronomers believed for some decades that the galaxy was approaching at nearly 200 miles per second (320 km/s), but later astronomers disagreed.

Then in May 2012, NASA astronomers announced they can now predict the time of this collision of titanic galaxies with certainty. Remember, though, that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.2 million light-years away, with a single light-year being almost 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km). So although it does appear that this galaxy is approaching our Milky Way galaxy … it’s nothing to lose sleep over. When will they collide? According to NASA astronomers in 2012, it’ll be four billion years from now.

However, in March 2022, the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal published new research revealing that the collision between our galaxies is already underway. Or at least our galactic halos – which consist of gas, dust and stray stars – may already be touching.

Read more: Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way are merging

When galaxies collide …

What happens when galaxies collide? They don’t exactly crash into each other. Because there’s so much more space than stars even in a galaxy, colliding galaxies pass through each other, like ghosts.

But, colliding galaxies do interact via gravity, which will cause them to change shape and even merge into a larger galaxy. Check out this cool video: Night sky as Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies merge.

Night sky with huge, bright oblique swirl of stars - Andromeda galaxy - next to cloudy band of Milky Way.
This image represents Earth’s night sky in 3.75 billion years. The Andromeda galaxy (left) will fill our field of view then, astronomers say, as it heads toward a collision with our Milky Way galaxy. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI/ T. Hallas/ A. Mellinger.

The Andromeda galaxy (M31) is located at the coordinates RA: 0h 42.7m; Dec: 41o 16′ north.

Bottom line: At 2.5 million light-years, the great Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31) rates as the most distant object you can see with the unaided eye.

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Posted 
September 5, 2024
 in 
Clusters Nebulae Galaxies

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