The Andromeda Galaxy (Gabe Shaughnessy)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: 35 nu. And · Andromeda galaxy · Great Nebula in Andromeda · M 110 · M 31 · M 32 · NGC 205 · NGC 206 · NGC 221 · NGC 224 · The star νAnd

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The Andromeda Galaxy

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The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a spiral galaxy nearly 2.5 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda. It is the closest non-satellite galaxy of our host galaxy, the Milky Way, and is nearly twice as massive at 1.5 trillion solar masses. It is visible with the naked eye from moderately dark skies, and is about 6x2 lunar diameters in apparent size.

The Milky Way and M31 are moving towards each other at 225 km/s (504000mph) and are expected to collide in 3-4 billion years. While the odds of stellar collisions are incredibly small due to the large inter-stellar separation, the ambient hydrogen gas will be compressed. The result is a significant increase in stellar formation. For comparison, the Milky Way is estimated to produce roughly 2 stars per year, and galaxy mergers of medium to large size such as this future collision can produce 100-1000 stars per year.

Eventually, the supermassive black holes that reside in the core of our galaxies will inspiral and find each other, resulting in a massive collision. The energy radiated away during such a collision is truly incredible. The first observation of a black hole collision by LIGO determined that the two black holes, of mass 36 and 29 solar masses, radiated a total of 3 solar masses of gravitational energy. This is equivalent to the entire world's energy production expended once a nanosecond for 6 years, and expended again for each and every human on earth. Instead of 6 years though, the black hole merger expended a bulk of this energy in 0.1 seconds. Now, the estimated mass of the Milky Way's black hole is 4.3 million, the Andromeda's mass is 40 million solar masses.

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Milwaukee Astronomical Society

Galaxies

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2374791
PixInsight job	D1YCZYHBC0QCCGEQ3BMYM8DX1TPU2X3I
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h42m34s.55
RA (top/left)	00h32m16s.43
RA (top/right)	00h52m56s.96
RA (bottom/right)	00h53m24s.19
RA (bottom/left)	00h31m41s.70

Dec (center)	+41°15′33″.2
Dec (top/left)	+39°37′48″.9
Dec (top/right)	+39°38′43″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	+42°49′40″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	+42°48′50″.2

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The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy

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The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy

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