ANDROMEDA GALAXY HAS THE SAME MASS AS OUR GALAXY

Andromeda Galaxy
2.5 million light years
Andromeda Constellation

Our final #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors target has been reached: The Andromeda Galaxy! Andromeda, which has almost the same mass as our galaxy, is heading towards a collision with the Milky Way in 2-4 billion years. For now, we can admire its beauty from afar.

The curving arms of Andromeda, a spiral galaxy, are one of its most striking features. Hubble magnified the image to closely examine its pink branches, revealing regions of ionised gas. Such regions are common in spiral and irregular galaxies and often signal the formation of new stars.

Hubble's instruments peered through the gas clouds to investigate stellar properties in the spiral galaxy and observed a valuable sample of star clusters.

Image descriptions:
1 - Thousands of distant stars fill the image against black space. Red nebular spirals bloom throughout the image.
2 - Thousands of distant stars fill the view against black space. A pink, flower-like branch of red nebulae glows near the top of the centre.

Image credits:

NASA, ESA, M. Boyer (Space Telescope Science Institute) and J. Dalcanton (University of Washington); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)