The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy. It is about 25 million
light years away from Earth. It is the largest galaxy in the vicinity of our
Milky Way galaxy. It gets its name from the region of the sky in which it
appears in the Andromeda constellation. The Andromeda constellation is named
after the Greek mythological princess Andromeda.
The Andromeda galaxy can be seen even without
a telescope, which means that man has known about it since ancient times. It
can be seen as a moist on a clear night from a bright environmental haze. With
the help of a telescope, its central part can be seen clearly. With the help of
large telescopes, even more spectacular views of this galaxy can be seen.
Andromeda is the largest galaxy by volume. It
contains almost twice as many stars as our galaxy. Their number is
approximately 200 to 400 billion stars. Andromeda is approximately 220,000
light years in diameter. This diameter is one and a half times larger than our
Milky Way Galaxy.
Since Andromeda is clearly visible at night,
astronomers have been studying it for decades. It is estimated that it was
formed 10 billion years ago by the collision of many small neon galaxies and
then around 8 billion years ago it took its current shape as a result of a
collision with another galaxy. Like our Milky Way galaxy, it also has a supermassive
black hole at its center. And possibly two other black holes orbiting around it,
its mass is about 14 million times more than that of our sun. Our galaxy and
the Andromeda galaxy are approaching each other at a speed of 75 miles per
second. When their collision is complete, they will merge to form a giant
elliptical galaxy.
However, it is estimated that this event will
happen approximately 3.7 billion years from now.
