TThe Andromeda Galaxy (also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224; older texts often called it the Andromeda Nebula) is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda.

The Andromeda Galaxy is easily visible to the naked eye in a moderately dark sky, though such a sky is available only in smaller towns and isolated areas reasonably far from population centers and sources of light pollution.

It appears quite small without a telescope because only the central part is bright enough to be visible, but the full angular diameter of the galaxy is seven times that of the full moon..

For more information about the topic Andromeda Galaxy, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Local Group — The Local Group (also called M31 group or the Andromeda group) is the group of galaxies that includes our galaxy, the Milky Way. The group comprises ...  > read more

Barred spiral galaxy — A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a band of bright stars emerging from the center and running across the middle of the ...  > read more

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Related Stories

Lady In Red: Andromeda Galaxy Shines In Spitzer's Eyes (October 17, 2005) — NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a stunning infrared view of Messier 31, the famous spiral galaxy also known as Andromeda. Andromeda is the most-studied galaxy outside our own Milky Way, ...  > read more

Next-Door Cosmic Encounter: Neighboring Galaxies Collided 2-3 Billion Years Ago (September 5, 2009) — An international team of astronomers has uncovered evidence of a nearby cosmic encounter. Their study indicates that the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, the two galaxies closest to our own, ...  > read more

Deepest View Of Space Yields Young Stars In Andromeda Halo (May 9, 2003) — Relying on the deepest visible-light images ever taken in space, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have reliably measured the age of the spherical halo of stars surrounding ...  > read more

Mission Captures Galaxies Galore (December 24, 2003) — The most sensitive and comprehensive ultraviolet image ever taken of the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large neighbor galaxy, has been captured by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The image is ...  > read more

Evidence Of Ancient Galactic Collision Found (January 29, 2007) — Astronomers surveying the nearby Andromeda galaxy have discovered an association of stars in its outskirts, which they believe to be part of a separate galaxy that merged with Andromeda about 700 ...  > read more

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