Andromeda Galaxy in Visible and Infrared
While Andromeda is a spiral galaxy, its dust falls largely in a huge ring structure, possibly caused by gravitational interactions with its smaller satellite galaxies.
Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, around 2.5 million light-years away. Once thought to be a twin of our galaxy, its different structure is very evident in infrared light. While it is a spiral galaxy, its dust falls largely in a huge ring structure, possibly caused by gravitational interactions with its smaller satellite galaxies.
Optical: This is the classic visible view of the Andromeda Galaxy
Infrared: Andromeda's dust ring stands out in the infrared
This animation is the same as above, played twice as fast.
NOAO optical image of Andromeda
Optical: This is the classic visible view of the Andromeda Galaxy
Spitzer Infrared image of Andromeda
Infrared: Andromeda's dust ring stands out in the infrared
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credits:
- Optical: NOAO, AURA/NSF
- Infrared: NASA, JPL-Caltech, K. Gordon (University of Arizona)
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Visualizer
- Greg Bacon (STScI)
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Image processing
- Karl Gordon (The University of Arizona)
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Technical support
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Monday, September 10, 2018.
This page was last updated on Friday, August 2, 2024 at 4:53 PM EDT.
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Datasets used
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[Spitzer Space Telescope]
ID: 690This dataset can be found at: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/
See all pages that use this dataset -
[National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO)]
ID: 1003This dataset can be found at: https://www.noao.edu
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.