Andromeda Galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy scanned with high-energy X-ray vision

6 January 2016 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured the best high-energy X-ray view yet of a portion of the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large neighbouring spiral galaxy. The space observatory has observed 40 “X-ray binaries” — intense sources of X-rays comprising a black hole or neutron star that feeds off a stellar companion.

Hubble’s Andromeda Galaxy survey unlocks clues to star birth

5 September 2015 Astronomy Now

In a Hubble Space Telescope survey of 2,753 young, blue star clusters in the neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy (M31), astronomers have found that M31 and our own galaxy have a similar percentage of newborn stars based on mass. The intensive survey was a unique collaboration between astronomers and “citizen scientists,” volunteers who provided invaluable help in analysing the mountain of data from Hubble.

See the return of the Andromeda Galaxy

15 August 2015 Ade Ashford

Are you looking for something to whet your observing appetite and celebrate the return of late summer dark skies to the British Isles? Why not welcome back the Andromeda Galaxy to the Northern Hemisphere night sky in this observing guide to one of the annual harbingers of autumnal celestial delights.

Hubble finds giant halo around the Andromeda Galaxy

7 May 2015 Astronomy Now

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the immense halo of gas enveloping the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest massive galactic neighbour, is about six times larger and 1,000 times more massive than previously measured.

Astrophysicists create 3-D master map of the universe

29 April 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada have created a spherical 3-D map of the universe spanning nearly two billion light-years that is the most complete picture of our cosmic neighbourhood to date.

Hubble finds phantom objects near dead quasars

4 April 2015 Astronomy Now

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a set of enigmatic quasar ghosts — ethereal, looped structures glowing green that orbit their host galaxies marking the graves of quasars that flickered to life and then faded. They offer new insights into the turbulent pasts of these galaxies.