Andromeda Galaxy in Visible and Infrared

Released Monday, September 10, 2018

ID: 30990

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

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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)

Visualizer
- Greg Bacon (STScI)
Image processing
- Karl Gordon (The University of Arizona)
Technical support
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

Missions

This page is related to the following missions:

Spitzer Space Telescope (Spitzer)

Datasets used

[Spitzer Space Telescope]
ID: 690

Collected by: NASA JPL/Cal Tech

This dataset can be found at: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/
See all pages that use this dataset
[National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO)]
ID: 1003

This dataset can be found at: https://www.noao.edu
See all pages that use this dataset