The Andromeda Galaxy and Her Brightest Star

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The Andromeda galaxy can be found to the north of the constellation bearing its name and appears as a “long, hazy patch” (Redd, 2012) in the sky with a visible fuzzy patch of stars stretching about “as long as the width of the full moon, half as wide and six times that length in fullness. This galaxy contains a concentrated bulge of matter in the middle, surrounded by a disk of gas, dust, and stars 260,000 light-years long, more than 2.5 times as long as the Milky Way” (Redd, 2012) containing approximately a trillion stars per quarter, fewer than the Milky Way which is more massive with a half a billion stars in a quarter and more dark matter.
Andromeda is a Spiral Galaxy whose disk containing the spiral arms does not have a “sharp boundary” but rather areas of density including a very thin area containing hot young stars and an area of older stars approximately 1000 parsecs. From the appearance it is said to have more than one disk. Andromeda’s disk is made of gas, dust and stars approximately 260,000 light-years in size, compared to the Milky Way which is 100,000 light-years across. Andromeda has a “double nucleus as determined in 1992.” (Hubble Zooms in on Double Nucleus in Andromeda Galaxy, 2012) The nucleus of this galaxy consists of “an elliptical ring of old reddish stars in orbit around the black hole.” (Hubble Zooms in on Double Nucleus in Andromeda Galaxy, 2012) The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, 2.5 million light years away as well as being the most distant object viewable with the naked eye. Like most galaxies, the composition of Andromeda contains a black hole at the center as well as a large number of stars, dark matter, and dust. “Located in the northern sky, Andromeda was named a...

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... by Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor | May 08, 2012 02:23pm ET

2) Copyright © 2013 Constellation Guide. Powered by WordPress and Hybrid
3) The Weekend Image : Andromeda Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole/ The Daily Galaxy, Great Discoveries Channel/April 28, 2013
4) NASA Press Release 6/12/13
(5) Trove of Black Holes Discovered in Andromeda Galaxy/by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor | June 12, 2013 07:22pm ET
NASA Jet propulsion
6) ESA/2011
7) Hubble, 2012
8) http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~huffman/m31.html
9) NASA/Amazing Andromeda Galaxy/10.3.2006
10) (Andromeda Galaxy Great Nebula in Andromeda, M31, NGC 224)
11) Alpheratz, in Andromeda, part of Great Square/ Larry Sessions and Deborah Byrd in Tonight | Brightest Stars on Oct 07, 2013) http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/alpheratz-belongs-to-andromeda-but-pegasus-can-claim-it

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