APOD: 2019 September 9 - M31: The Andromeda Galaxy

Good Morning/Afternoon Maj William W. 'Bill' Price and thank you for this magnificent photo of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31!!! In that it is approximately 2.5 million light years away and 220 light years across... Check out the Ultraviolet "Swift" Tour of our Huge Sister Galaxy!

"NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of the neighboring spiral galaxy M31. Also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 is the largest and closest such galaxy to our own. It's more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers. The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours. Some 20,000 ultraviolet sources are visible in the image, including M32, a small galaxy in orbit around M31. Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle in the disk beyond the galaxy's smooth, redder central bulge. Star clusters are especially plentiful along a ring about 150,000 light-years across." NASA Goddard Space Center
https://youtu.be/HWxBTHVhc3I


Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Marty Hogan COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col Charlie Brown SSG Byron Howard Sr LTC Stephen F. Col Carl Whicker Maj Robert Thornton CWO3 Dennis M. LTC Wayne Brandon Sgt Deborah Cornatzer PO3 Bob McCord CW5 Jack Cardwell TSgt Joe C. SFC Stephen Lucas SMSgt Lawrence McCarter Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi SrA Marianne Santangelo Sgt Albert Castro

Thank you, my friend Maj William W. 'Bill' Price for posting Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for Monday, September 9, 2019 entitled "M31: The Andromeda Galaxy."
Beautiful image of the second heaven created by Almighty God which we get to see through advanced telescope systems since the solar system is located at the edge of Milky Way Galaxy which allows humans to view the heavens. If the solar system was significantly closer to the center of the Milky Way we would be overwhelmed with light 24-hours-a-day.

Image: M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy - Image Credit & Copyright - Amir H. Abolfath (TWAN)

"Explanation: How far can you see? The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy, over two million light-years away. Without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy appears as an unremarkable, faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. But a bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, luminous blue spiral arms, and bright red emission nebulas are recorded in this stunning six-hour telescopic digital mosaic of our closest major galactic neighbor. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept only 100 years ago. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying gas clouds in our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they "island universes" -- distant galaxies of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations favoring Andromeda being just like our Milky Way Galaxy -- a conclusion making the rest of the universe much more vast than many had ever imagined."
FYI SFC Jack Champion Maj Marty Hogan TSgt Joe C. Sgt (Join to see) COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter MAJ Bill Maynard SSG Michael NollSFC Jack Championaa John ZodunCpl James R. " Jim" Gossett Jr SPC Jon O.SP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-CwikPO1 Jerome Newland
TSgt David L.

Awesome Bill!!