Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Andromeda (And)  ·  Contains:  Andromeda Galaxy  ·  M 110  ·  M 31  ·  M 32  ·  NGC 205  ·  NGC 221  ·  NGC 224  ·  The star 32And  ·  The star νAnd
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M31 The Andromeda Galaxy, Sean Liang
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy
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M31 The Andromeda Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy, Sean Liang
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M31 The Andromeda Galaxy

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M31 The Andromeda Galaxy

This galaxy marked the beginning of our understanding of the universe's immensity.Merely 100 years ago, Andromeda was thought to be a nebula, and many astronomers at the time believed that our Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe. Not long after, Edwin Hubble made his famous observation, confirming Andromeda as a galaxy, and our galaxy was just one of many. From that moment, our universe expanded, and we never looked back.The background may look a bit messy, but it was intentionally so. Every dot in the image is a star, and there are well over 10,000 stars in the background. The galaxy itself contains about a trillion stars, many of which have their own planets. Maybe, just maybe, some of them could even harbour life.Another fun fact about Andromeda is that it's on a head-on collision course with our Milky Way. They will collide about 4.5 billion years from now, performing a spectacular cosmic dance and merging into a new elliptical galaxy. Would humans still be around to witness the show?(The data was collected from Telescopelive, which I processed using Pixinsight and Photoshop)

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M31 The Andromeda Galaxy, Sean Liang