Andromeda Galaxy.

I received an email today from earth science. The email had the above picture of the Andromeda Galaxy. The image was taken by Karsten Moller. The image is estimated to be 2.5 million light years away. The approximate stars that shines in this galaxy are with the numbers of 1 trillion. Nasa post the explanation of the andromeda galaxy which is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. So close, and spanning some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite's telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. While its spiral arms stand out in visible light images of Andromeda (also known as M31), the arms look more like rings in the GALEX ultraviolet view, dominated by hot, young, massive stars. As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The large Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way are the dominant members of the local galaxy group. Credit of this explanation goes to NASA. Below is the website for a tour to Andromeda Galaxy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxBTHVhc3I