                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2022 July 11

                      Andromeda over the Sahara Desert
                        Credit & Copyright: Jordi Coy

   Explanation: What is the oldest thing you can see? At 2.5 million light
   years distant, the answer for the unaided eye is the Andromeda galaxy,
   because its photons are 2.5 million years old when they reach you. Most
   other apparent denizens of the night sky -- stars, clusters, and
   nebulae -- appear as they were only a few hundred to a few thousand
   years ago, as they lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Given its
   distance, light from Andromeda is likely also the farthest object that
   you can see. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy dominates the
   center of the featured zoomed image, taken from the Sahara Desert in
   Morocco last month. The featured image is a combination of three
   background and one foreground exposure -- all taken with the same
   camera and from the same location and on the same calendar day -- with
   the foreground image taken during the evening blue hour. M110, a
   satellite galaxy of Andromenda is visible just above and to the left of
   M31's core. As cool as it may be to see this neighboring galaxy to our
   Milky Way with your own eyes, long duration camera exposures can pick
   up many faint and breathtaking details. Recent data indicates that our
   Milky Way Galaxy will collide and combine with the similarly-sized
   Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

                    Tomorrow's picture: noctilucent tower
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

