Astronomy Picture of the Day -- High Energy Andromeda

NASA ^ | January 07, 2016 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go. In this (inset) scan, image data from NASA's Nuclear Spectrosopic Telescope Array has yielded the best high-energy X-ray view yet of our large neighboring spiral, revealing some 40 extreme sources of X-rays, X-ray binary star systems that contain a black hole or neutron star orbiting a more normal stellar companion. In fact, larger Andromeda and our own Milky Way are the most massive members of the local galaxy group. Andromeda is close enough that NuSTAR can examine its population of X-ray binaries in detail, comparing them to our own. The background image of Andromeda was taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer in energetic ultraviolet light.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, GSFC, NuSTAR, GALEX]

[SunkenCiv]

http://freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=3380678%2C0

http://129.164.179.22/apod/image/1601/PIA20061NuSTARAndromeda600h.jpg

http://129.164.179.22/apod/image/1601/PIA20061NuSTARAndromeda.jpg

[samtheman]

Coming to join us.

[Daffynition]

Too late to prepare. Spaceballs. It has commenced.

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[TheOldLady]

Looking at images such as this one makes me realize exactly how illiterate I am about the Cosmos. The big, out-of-focus, fuzzy part is Greek to me. Sigh...

The colors are pretty, though. Gotta say SOMEthing nice.

[SunkenCiv]

I went to school with Ann Dromeda. In fact, the school was just off M-31.

[TheOldLady]

Giggles! Thanks for the clarification. Who knew? ;-)