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Herschel
Space Observatory

An ESA Mission
with Participation from NASA

Nhsc2011-001c

Andromeda is So Hot 'n' Cold (X-Ray Only)

This image of the Andromeda spiral galaxy highlights explosive stars in its interior, and cooler, dusty stars forming in its many rings. The XMM-Newton telescope captured in X-rays. NASA plays a role in both of these European Space Agency-led missions.

XMM-Newton is capturing what happens at the end of the lives of massive stars. It shows the high-energy X-rays that come from, among other objects, supernova explosions and massive dead stars rotating around companions. These X-ray sources are clustered in the center of the galaxy, where the most massive stars tend to form.

Andromeda is our Milky Way galaxy's nearest large neighbor. It is located about 2.5 million light-years away and holds up to an estimated trillion stars. Our Milky Way is thought to contain about 200 billion to 400 billion stars.

Image Details
Date
January 5, 2011
ID
nhsc2011-001c
Type
Observation
Credit
ESA/XMM-Newton/EPIC/W. Pietsch
Object Details
Name
Andromeda Galaxy
Messier 31
M31
NGC 224
Subject | Milky Way
Galaxy Type Spiral
Distance
Lightyears 2,500,000
Constellation
Andromeda
Color Mapping
Telescope Spectral Band Color Assigment Wavelength
XMM-Newton X-ray Blue 826.6 pm