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The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31 , M31 , and NGC 224 . Andromeda has a D 25 isophotal diameter of about 46.56 kiloparsecs (152,000 light-years ) [ 8 ] and is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years ...
The conclusion was that Andromeda is moving southeast in the sky at less than 0.1 milliarc-seconds per year, corresponding to a speed relative to the Sun of less than 200 km/s towards the south and towards the east. Taking also into account the Sun's motion, Andromeda's tangential or sideways velocity with respect to the Milky Way was found to ...
Exposure time was 140 hours. The scale is shown in megaparsecs. Redshift (z) = 0.3, meaning its light has wavelengths stretched by a factor of 1.3. Clusters of galaxies are formed by the merger of smaller units of matter, such as galaxy groups or individual
Absolute magnitude is defined as the apparent magnitude that a star or object would have if it were observed from a distance of 10 parsecs (33 light-years; 3.1 × 10 14 kilometres; 1.9 × 10 14 miles). Therefore, it is of greater use in stellar astrophysics since it refers to a property of a star regardless of how close it is to Earth.
Galactic year. The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [ 1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [ 2] The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph) within ...
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has satellite galaxies just like the Milky Way. Orbiting M31 are at least 13 dwarf galaxies: the brightest and largest is M110, which can be seen with a basic telescope. The second-brightest and closest one to M31 is M32. The other galaxies are fainter, and were mostly discovered starting from the 1970s.
The Andromeda Galaxy and its satellite galaxy, Messier 110, to the bottom-right of the center. About half of the Andromeda's satellite galaxies are orbiting it along a highly flattened plane, with 14 out of 16 following the same sense of rotation. One theory proposes that these 16 once belonged to a subhalo surrounding M110, then the group was ...
Current measurements suggest the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at 100 to 140 km/s (220,000 to 310,000 mph). In 4.3 billion years, there may be an Andromeda–Milky Way collision , depending on the importance of unknown lateral components to the galaxies' relative motion.