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The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way.It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224.
The most famous deep-sky object in Andromeda is the spiral galaxy cataloged as Messier 31 (M31) or NGC 224 but known colloquially as the Andromeda Galaxy for the constellation. [53] M31 is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye, 2.2 million light-years from Earth (estimates range up to 2.5 million light-years). [54]
For example, Messier 1 is a supernova remnant, known as the Crab Nebula, and the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy is M31. Further inclusions followed; the first addition came from Nicolas Camille Flammarion in 1921, who added Messier 104 after finding Messier's side note in his 1781 edition exemplar of the catalogue.
The term "The Local Group" was introduced by Edwin Hubble in Chapter VI of his 1936 book The Realm of the Nebulae. [11] There, he described it as "a typical small group of nebulae which is isolated in the general field" and delineated, by decreasing luminosity, its members to be M31, Milky Way, M33, Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud, M32, NGC 205, NGC 6822, NGC 185, IC 1613 and ...
M31 and M44 are barely glimpsed by an experienced observer on good nights; even with a telescope, only bright Messier objects can be detected; limiting magnitude with 12.5" reflector is 13; 9 Inner-city sky 4.0 The sky is brilliantly lit; many stars forming constellations are invisible and many fainter constellations are invisible
[3] [4] For several additional reasons, M32 is thought to be in the foreground of M31, rather than behind. Its stars and planetary nebulae do not appear obscured or reddened by foreground gas or dust. [21] [22] Gravitational microlensing of M31 by a star in M32 was observed at the end of November 2000 in one event (with peak on 2 December 2000 ...
This glossary of astronomy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to astronomy and cosmology, their sub-disciplines, and related fields. Astronomy is concerned with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth. The field of astronomy features an extensive vocabulary and a ...
To this day, the Hubble sequence is the most commonly used system for classifying galaxies, both in professional astronomical research and in amateur astronomy. [10] Nonetheless, in June 2019, citizen scientists through Galaxy Zoo reported that the usual Hubble classification , particularly concerning spiral galaxies , may not be supported, and ...