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On this photo we can see Andromeda galaxy, which is also known as M31 (Messier's obect 31), and NGC 224. It is the closest galaxy to our own galaxy Milky Way, and represent the most distant object in the sky that can be seen with naked eye.This post is dedicated to one of the first steemians I stumbled upon in steemit chat and her name immediately caught my attention - @m31.
Andromeda is a spiral galaxy classified as a SA(s)b in the Hubble tuning fork. Distance to this beautiful galaxy from Earth is approximately 2.5 million lightyears (780 kiloparsecs). It contains one trillion stars, which is more than twice the number of the Milky Way (estimated to 300-400 billion). With the diameter of 220 000 light years it is the second largest galaxy in our local group, which is home to 127 galaxies.
If you want to see Andromeda galaxy from the northern hemisphere, the best time to observe it is from mid summer to spring. One of the easiest way to find it is using Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia and Pegasus constellations.
Start with Ursa Major, using it to find Ursa minor and Polaris (left photo). From polaris follow the arrow to Cassiopeia (constellation with W shape), if you keep going you will see small hazy speck..
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It is All beautiful things are dangerous, Andromeda galaxy is no exception, it will collide with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years, in this spectacular event most likely these two galaxies will merge, forming an elliptical galaxy. Below you can see the simulation made by VideosFromSpace using data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
It is interesting that long before the collision, the, Andromeda galaxy will get easier and easier to see with the naked eye. That is going to be incredible.
I wonder what the distance will be before it becomes as visible as our moon in terms of how much real estate it takes up in the sky. Seems there will be a nice viewing distance before it get so close our entire sky is changed ...wonder what the early part of the collision will look like to observers here on earth.
The galaxies are moving towards each other at around 402,000 kilometers per hour, and it will take around 4 billion years for the collision. Upon collision our sun will have expanded but not yet be a red giant. Source
"I wonder what the distance will be before it becomes as visible as our moon in terms of how much real estate it takes up in the sky. "
It is actually pretty easy to calculate knowing it's diameter, distance and apparent size, but I am too lazy to do it :)
Guess you already read it, but most likely Solar system won't be affected by the collision. and time and duration of the collisions depend on different models in simulations.
I saw a program awhile back and they speculated how in the future Andromeda will be visible in the night sky. I forget their prediction in terms of years, but it is long before the earth is too hot for humans as we know it. It is interesting that our galaxy will change into a giant elliptical galaxy before the sun expands enough to take out the earth.
As far as the calculation, while I understand what you are saying I am not aware of the formula. It is so far off, I will just enjoy the simulations :-)
This is such a brilliant idea and very creative!
Looking at a galaxy like that blows my mind. It's like looking at a flea on a dog, except 100X haha!
Not that would be a spectacle I'd like to see, imagine seeing it unfold over matter of hours in real life.
It's a cool simulation :)
:) There is also this video, but I thought it is too long for such a post :)
another one on simulations vs observations that is my favorite on galaxy collisions:
Ahh nice one dude, I've seen the first one, it was that I was thinking of :p
The King of all Cosmic Collisions!
I wrote a post on a smaller collision earlier, now I feel inferior. hahah
The best way to see it in the sky, by the way, is to not look directly at it. It's usually so faint that you can pick it up when it's in your peripheral vision, but difficult to see when you look straight on. :)
Nice, thanks! Forgot to mention it, since being used to using it you can forget that people do not know about that trick. :)
They'd probably figure it out, but what I'm curious to know is why our eyes work like that.
I might be wrong, but on one of our classes we learned about vision and human eye. I think it is because of distribution of rods and cons in the eye. Rods are responsible for low light and basically black and white vision (thats why we can't differentiate colors in the dark). And Cons and rods are distributed on different places in the eye - being more rods in the peripheral of an eye.
We need some medical stuff here :)
I have no idea if you're right, but it makes sense!
@svemirac, имаш убиствене садржаје :)
Trudim se, biće ovoga još :)
I love everything extraterrestrial and you sum up the information perfectly to keep the attention of even a child, while keeping an old fogie like me engaged. I would be glad to be amongst the first to take a one-way trip to the stars. I had no idea Andromeda and the Milky Way were destined to collide. I thought everything was moving away from each other.
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