Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Andromeda (And)  ·  Contains:  Great Nebula in Andromeda  ·  M 110  ·  M 31  ·  M 32  ·  NGC 205  ·  NGC 221  ·  NGC 224  ·  The star 32And  ·  The star νAnd
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M31 Tidal Warps, Annehouw
M31 Tidal Warps
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M31 Tidal Warps

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M31 Tidal Warps, Annehouw
M31 Tidal Warps
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M31 Tidal Warps

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Description

At first, I thought I had a reflection in my lens, as I had never seen this before. It turns out that the sharp downturned edge at the right side of the Andromeda galaxy is real. The disk of M31 has an S shape.

It is assumed that the warps are caused by tidal interactions with another galaxy, most probably M33 which is relatively close by. Radio observations have indeed revealed a bridge of H1 gas between M31 and M33. Whether the warping of the disk is also due to M33 or the earlier passing of another (maybe dwarf) galaxy did not become clear to me. More information here: http://www.ucolick.org/~raja/warp.html

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M31 Tidal Warps, Annehouw

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