Visiting Andromeda galaxy

andromeda is the nearest major galaxy next to earth it is the largest member of the local group and has a diameter of roughly 220 000 light years [Music] located 2.5 million light years away the giant spiral galaxy contains more than one trillion stars unlike most of the other galaxies that are moving away from earth due to the expansion of the universe the andromeda galaxy is moving towards earth at a whopping speed of around 110 kilometers per second [Music] andromeda has had a violent past it was not always this big during its lifespan andromeda has consumed a number of other galaxies and grown in size given its distance and the huge amount of energy required to escape the milky way galaxy's gravitational pull traveling to andromeda with current technology would be absolutely impossible you would require some kind of futuristic technology like wormholes or a warp drive to get there [Music] imagine that you somehow managed to travel to andromeda what would you see what would the galaxy look like like the milky way andromeda 2 is a barred spiral galaxy it is estimated that andromeda is about 25 percent more luminous than our own galaxy andromeda is quite unique astronomers have found stars of different ages types and configurations such as binary stars in the galaxy watching andromeda with your own eyes from close would be breathtaking the most peculiar feature of andromeda would be its double nucleus the center of andromeda hosts not one but two nuclei at one nuclei sits a supermassive black hole that is about 200 million times more massive than our sun and is also significantly larger than the black hole at the center of our galaxy which is just about 4 million times more massive than our sun the other nuclei is considered to be a concentration of stars in an orbit around this humongous black hole [Music] astronomers know quite a few things about andromeda but visiting the galaxy and observing it from up close would definitely help us unravel many unanswered questions about the galaxy andromeda is known to have a violent history it's been devouring other galaxies throughout its lifespan and the milky way galaxy is next on this list both the milky way and andromeda are comparable in terms of mass and would collide with one another in roughly 4 billion years from now on to form a huge elliptical galaxy called milkomeda our universe is huge the farthest humans have ever been is to the moon we don't know if humans would ever travel to other galaxies the possibility cannot be ruled out after all today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact [Music] you

Channel: Astrogeekz

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Length: 3min 59sec (239 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 16 2020