Andromeda Galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy — galaxy, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Andromeda Galaxy in an interactive 3D view of space. See its catalogue position, distance and astronomical facts.

The nearest major galaxy and the most distant thing visible to the naked eye, home to about a trillion stars. It is falling toward the Milky Way — one day the two will merge into a single giant galaxy. Its brightest stars here are real, measured by Hubble and from the ground; fly in and representative stars, drawn from its measured light, fill in the rest.

Type

Spiral galaxy (SA(s)b)

Distance

2.5 million light-years

Stars

~1 trillion

Diameter

~152,000 light-years

Approaching at

110 km/s

Merges with us in

~4.5 billion years

Shown here

889,000 real stars from Hubble (PHAT, PHAST) and the Local Group Galaxies Survey, each at its sky position; the surveys’ even scattering of foreground and background objects removed statistically

Up close

Up to millions more representative stars, sampled from its measured light and labelled as such

Glow & dust

Old stars: a 3D bulge, bar and disc fitted to WISE infrared; young stars from GALEX; Herschel dust; 3,961 H II regions

Depth

Disc tilted 77° (measured); its thickness and each star’s depth along our line of sight are modelled

Explore Andromeda Galaxy in 3D

Andromeda Galaxy is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.