Question: What and where is the Andromeda Galaxy?

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  1. Sorry I didn’t get time to answer this in our chat today. The Andromeda galaxy is a large spiral galaxy, quite similar to our own. It lies about 2.5 million light years distant from us. That is, it takes light 2.5 million years to travel from Andromeda to us, traveling at a speed of ~30,000 km/s (that’s fast enough to get from one side of the Earth to the other in less than half a second). Andromeda is the closest regular galaxy to ours and therefore, can be seen very easily – you can see it with your naked eye, if you know where to look and if you have a nice dark sky, away from lights. The Andromeda galaxy lies in the constellation of Andromeda (hence the name), which is a fairly northern constellation, better seen from the northern parts of Australia. The wikipedia entry for the Andromeda galaxy gives directions to look for it, but from most of Australia it is difficult and you need to look at the right time of year. Happily, it is one of the most heavily photographed and studied galaxies, because it is so close. So, if you google for Andromeda galaxy and search for images, you will find lots of amazing photos. A fun fact is that the Andromeda galaxy and our own galaxy are moving toward each other (due to gravity) at a rate of ~300 km/s and that they may collide in a few billion years, forming a new merged galaxy!

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