They publish a representation of Andromeda created with more than 600 images of the Hubble Space Telescope

Andromeda is about 2.5 million light years from the Milky Way, where we live on earth. This may seem very distant, but in reality it is the closest galaxy.

This makes it visible to the naked eye on autumn nights, when the air is clear. Previously known as Andromeda’s nebula, its blurred appearance and similar to that of a cigar is about six times the apparent size of the full moon.

The Hubble Space Telescope, operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States (NASA) and other organisms, has dedicated more than 10 years to photograph Andromeda, and a panoramic image of the same has been published, created by combining more than 600 images. This time, based on this panoramic image of the Andromeda Galaxy and other data, we would like to reveal the unknown “true nature” of the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Hubble space telescope has been observing the Andromeda Galaxy since its launch in April 1990. According to NASA, its mission is to “understand the universe.”

Photo: NASA

Andromeda’s galaxy at a distance of 2.5 million light years

The Andromeda Galaxy is located 2.5 million light years from the Milky Way and, like this, presents a bump (a round bulge in the center) and a disc (a disc structure). It has a diameter of about 220,000 light years and it is estimated that it houses around a billion stars.

In comparison, the Milky Way has about 100,000 light years in diameter and it is estimated that it houses between 100,000 and 400,000 million stars. This means that the Andromeda Galaxy has more than double size than the Milky Way.

However, about 100 years ago, it was thought that the Andromeda Galaxy was part of the Milky Way. It was precisely the American astronomer Edwin Hubble who turned this astronomical wisdom accepted at the time.