Fact Sheet
Closer and Closer
M31, the Andromeda galaxy, is the most distant object in the universe that's easily visible to the unaided eye. It looks like a fuzzy blob of light in the constellation Andromeda, which is in the northeast on October evenings. M31 contains hundreds of billions of stars, and is more than two million light-years away. But the mutual gravitational attraction of M31 and the Milky Way is pulling the two galaxies closer together. They may slam together in a few billion years, and eventually merge to form a giant galaxy. [Credit: T.A. Rector, B.A. Wolpa, NOAO, AURA, NSF]
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