Andromeda: our nearest large galactic neighbour
January 7, 2011
The Andromeda Galaxy is our nearest large galactic neighbour, containing several hundred billion stars. Combined, these images show all stages of the stellar life cycle. The infrared image from Herschel shows areas of cool dust that trace reservoirs of gas in which forming stars are embedded. The optical image shows adult stars. XMM-Newton's X-ray image shows the violent endpoints of stellar evolution, in which individual stars explode or pairs of stars pull each other to pieces.
Topics:
Stellar astronomy, Large-scale structure of the cosmos, Local Group, Astronomy, Human Interest, X-ray, Astrophysical X-ray source, Andromeda Galaxy, Space, Extragalactic astronomy, Starburst galaxy, Star, Andromeda constellation, Galaxy, Milky Way, Spiral galaxies, Technology Internet
