• Question: How big is the Andromeda galaxy compared to the milky way galaxy?

    Asked by curtismurray to Donna, Jo, Mark, Stuart, timcraggs on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Donna MacCallum

      Donna MacCallum answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi Curtis,
      I’m afraid that I don’t know much about the galaxy and space things. I could look it up on google, but you have probably already done that. Mark may have an answer for you.

      Are you most interested in space and astronomy? I’m really more interested in living things and how we fight infections.

    • Photo: Joanna Buckley

      Joanna Buckley answered on 19 Jun 2010:

      I love anything to do with space. I’ve got my own telescope which I’ve had since I was about 16. There’s a pic of the moon that I took through my telescope on my profile page. Are you interested in space, curtis? If so, then you should get a telescope… they’re not very expensive if you go for a more basic model or you could get a really good pair of binoculars for a similar price. Go outside and point it at a random bit of black sky and you’ll be amazed what you see!

      We’re part of the milky way and when it’s a very clear night and you’ve not got any light pollution, you can see the MW as a white band running through the centre of the sky. I’ve only seen this a handful of times and usually in the winter when the temperature’s about -5 and I’m outside in about 10 layers of clothes gazing through my telescope!

      Andromeda is the nearest galaxy to ours. You can see it as a smudge in the sky, again of clear nights. It’s much bigger than our milky way and it’s amazing to think that that tiny thing we can see in the sky contains about a trillion stars.

      Makes you feel small doesn’t it?! 🙂

    • Photo: Mark Lancaster

      Mark Lancaster answered on 20 Jun 2010:

      In terms of visible matter (that emits radiation) then Andromeda is about 50% bigger than the Milky Way but the Milky Way contains much more Dark Matter (that doesn’t emit radiation but which we can “see” by it’s gravitational effect) and so the total mass of the two Galaxies is very similar. What’s perturbing is that Andromeda is heading towards us and will likely collide with The Milky Way in about 4 billion years – see http://www.galaxydynamics.org/tflops/movie_320x240.mpg for what the collision might look like. 4 billion years time promises to be an interesting time since that’s also about the time the sun will go out ….

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