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Concept
Andromeda Galaxy
Summary
The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way, where the Solar System resides. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromeda has a diameter of about and is approximately from Earth. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which itself is named after the princess who was the wife of Perseus in Greek mythology.
The virial mass of the Andromeda Galaxy is of the same order of magnitude as that of the Milky Way, at . The mass of either galaxy is difficult to estimate with any accuracy, but it was long thought that the Andromeda Galaxy was more massive than the Milky Way by a margin of some 25% to 50%. This has been called into question by early 21st-century studies indicating a possibly lower mass for the Andromeda Galaxy
and a higher mass for the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy has a diameter of about , making it the largest member of the Local Group of galaxies in terms of extension.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in around 4–5 billion years, merging to potentially form a giant elliptical galaxy or a large lenticular galaxy.
With an apparent magnitude of 3.4, the Andromeda Galaxy is among the brightest of the Messier objects, and is visible to the naked eye from Earth on moonless nights, even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution.
The Andromeda Galaxy has been visible to the naked eye, given dark skies, throughout history; as such, it cannot be said to have been "discovered" by any one individual. Around the year 964, the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was the first to formally describe the Andromeda Galaxy. He referred to it in his Book of Fixed Stars as a "nebulous smear" or "small cloud".
Star charts of that period labeled it as the Little Cloud. In 1612, the German astronomer Simon Marius gave an early description of the Andromeda Galaxy based on telescopic observations.
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Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλακτικὸς κύκλος (galaktikòs kýklos), meaning "milky circle". From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within.
Hubble sequence
The Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies published by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often colloquially known as the Hubble tuning-fork diagram because the shape in which it is traditionally represented resembles a tuning fork. It was invented by John Henry Reynolds and Sir James Jeans. The tuning fork scheme divided regular galaxies into three broad classes – ellipticals, lenticulars and spirals – based on their visual appearance (originally on photographic plates).
Galaxy
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 million stars, range in size from dwarfs with less than a hundred million stars, to the largest galaxies known – supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass.