Our Universe is huge, the furthest humans have ever been is to the moon, imagine that you somehow managed to travel to Andromeda what will you see? what would the galaxy look like?.
- Andromeda is the nearest major galaxy next to earth with one trillion stars.
- it is believed to be formed around 10 billion years ago.
- Also known as NGC-224 or MESSIER-31, it is 2,500,000 light years(1LY = 9.46×1012 km) from earth.
- unlike most of the other galaxies that are moving away from earth due to expansion of the universe, the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards the earth at a speed of 110km/sec.
- During its lifespan, Andromeda has consumed a number of other galaxies(milky way galaxy is next on the list) and grown in size to 220,000 LY.
- Being quite unique, Astronomers have found stars of different ages, types and configurations.
- Watching Andromeda with your own eyes from close would be breathtaking; the center hosts not one but 2 nuclei – 200 million times more massive than our sun,
- Andromeda, is a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way; consisting of an outlying spiral structure of dust and gas, connected by a dense bar-shaped concentration of stars in the galactic core.
- A journey to the Andromeda galaxy would take a million years of dark, and lonely voyage.
- You will first arrive at the outer-edge of the Andromeda galaxy, pass through the plasma halo, then reach the denser, extended stellar disc made up of stars scattered by Andromeda’s past collisions.
- The next visible component of the galaxy is the barred spiral structure, rich in dust, gas and metals, Andromeda’s largest star-forming cloud is situated at the boundary between two of its southwest spiral arms.
- At around 4,000 light years in diameter, MAYALL II is the most-massive known cluster, containing several million luminous star of varying ages and mentalities which hides the secretes of a richer past.
- Andromeda’s stellar populations seems broadly in line with the Milky Way’s-containing old and young stars, clusters, nebulae, black holes and perhaps life-supporting worlds around stars like the sun.
- Given its distance and the huge amount of energy required to escape Milky Way galaxy’s gravitational pull, travelling to Andromeda with current technology would be absolutely impossible.
- We do not know if humans would ever travel to other galaxies, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.
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