Did you know that the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is celebrating its 100th birthday today? This cosmic neighbour of ours is just a hop, skip, and a jump away at 2.5 million light-years and is home to a whopping trillion stars!
Let’s rewind to November 23, 1924. An American astronomer named Edwin Hubble, (yes the guy the space telescope was named after) who was only 35 at the time, made a super exciting discovery. He published a story in The New York Times saying that what people called the Andromeda nebula was actually not part of our Milky Way galaxy at all, but a whole other galaxy filled with millions of stars! Mind-blowing, right? That day, the universe suddenly felt a lot bigger and more exciting.
Up until then everything was considered to be a part of the Milky Way!
Then, in 1929, he made another thrilling find: he discovered that galaxies were zooming away from us, and the speed they were moving was related to how far away they were. Basically, the universe is getting bigger and bigger—just like Albert Einstein said!
A Cosmic Collision Ahead!
Now, here’s the really wild part—Andromeda is thought to be heading straight for us! It’s on a cosmic collision course with our Milky Way, racing towards us at a dizzying 400km per hour. In about four billion years, it will light up our night sky. But don’t worry, by then our Sun will have turned into a massive red giant, possibly swallowing Earth or boiling away all our oceans. Luckily, even when galaxies smash into one another, the chances of stars colliding are super low. There’s just so much space between them!
Latest Galactic Gossip
In 2019, scientists found that Andromeda had gobbled up some smaller galaxies over the last few billion years. A new theory from 2023 suggests that the Milky Way and Andromeda are so enormous that they’re already starting to collide! Some stars from our galaxy are being drawn by the higher gravity from the edges of the Milky Way towards Andromeda.
How cool is that?
Spotting Andromeda: Your Cosmic Adventure Awaits!
If you want to catch a glimpse of the Andromeda Galaxy, now’s your chance! It’s one the easiest galaxy to see out of the estimated two trillion in the universe and is the farthest thing you can spot in the night sky. If you live in the Southern-hemisphere you can also see the Large and small Magellanic Clouds.
You might have seen stunning photos of it from NASA, but seeing it with your own eyes is a whole different experience.
From the Southern hemisphere it was is visible between October and December, best viewed from as far north as possible. Binoculars can reveal some larger structures of the galaxy and its two brightest satellite galsxies M32 and M110.
So grab a pair of binoculars and find a dark spot away from city lights and look to the east of north and low to the horizon. A star finding app would be helpful to find for the first time. With a little patience, you can witness this galactic wonder for yourself. Happy stargazing.🌌✨