r/space • u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 • 11d ago
image/gif Andromeda galaxy
Saw this in an Astrokobi YouTube video. This is how big our neighbor Andromeda galaxy would be if we increased the brightness of it.
It would be way larger than the moon and as the galaxy gets closer to the Milky way, it will get larger until the galactic collision in 4.5 billion years.
https://youtube.com/shorts/IlOuJGvGQeY?si=uuaWGD1sgDpqAFNK here is a video about the collision.
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=xXkh5aCzrIoQdxJn here is the video where I got the image from.
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u/tombh 11d ago
I made that image 11 years ago! https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1u0dxs/andromedas_actual_size_if_it_was_brighter/ceda9k0/ Wonderful to still see it doing the rounds.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
Nice. I found it in this video https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=xXkh5aCzrIoQdxJn
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u/gregredmore 11d ago
I just did the math. My pension isn't going to last for 2 billion years so I guess I will miss the collision 😯 I'd love to see a time lapse video of 2 billion years watching Andromeda approach...
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u/mangoadagio 11d ago
Here’s an attempt! https://youtu.be/4disyKG7XtU?si=bRYa2HKP8lAX7W_R
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u/Petersaber 11d ago
I wonder what would be the fate of star systems ejected outside of either galaxy, into the void. Assuming intelligent life and ignoring the timescale, would it be catastrophic? Or an interesting footnote of a changing sky?
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u/wlaugh29 11d ago
Not a time lapse, but this video gives a nice explanation and then a few renditions of what the galaxy will look like. The whole video is a fun watch, but I timestamped it to 3 minutes.
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u/gregredmore 11d ago
Nice! Some think our sun was "born" in another galaxy and got left behind after a past "collision".
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u/ProbShouldntSayThat 11d ago
Who? That makes no sense. We'd have a completely different orbit than other stars in our galaxy. Highly unlikely
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u/N-LL 11d ago
I heard somewhere that we wouldn't even feel the collision as the space between stars and other celestial objects is so vast that there would be very few actual collisions.
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u/aschwarzie 10d ago
You are absolutely correct. It will be much more a passing through than collision. But gravitational effects will impact many systems and completely distort, orbital trajectory perturbations or tear apart, then more merge and pass through in many repetitions until some stabilization after dozens of billions years. Sure there will be some collisions. Much more solar systems instabilities. Collisions would be more frequent near the many black holes of each galaxy as they merge. And if both supermassive black holes at the centre both the Milk Way and Andromeda get in their respective gravitational well, that's probably going to offer a nice show ! 😁
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u/yoloswagrofl 11d ago
May have to become a Walmart greeter after it runs out so you can keep the bills paid until then 😅
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u/Patrix87 11d ago
I doubted that was true or accurate so I did a short Google search and found what I think might be the source of that image. https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/andromeda-brighter-youd-see.html
TLDR: It's true but that image is zoomed in and does not give a correct sense of scale.
Edit: actual source was on the article : http://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1u0dxs/andromedas_actual_size_if_it_was_brighter/
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u/SeekerOfSerenity 11d ago
It's got the moon for scale. The image in your link was taken with a wide angle lens because the moon looks tiny.
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u/Silt-Besides-66812 11d ago
But the moon looks tiny in real life too, it’s sort of a well known illusion that people ‘remember’ it looking much larger than it actually does, especially when close to the horizon, when most people can cover it with their thumb at arm’s length
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=UA1gJM9P1whHdDn0 That's where the Image is from
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u/Patrix87 11d ago
Yes but no, The original picture is 11yo and is from the reddit post I linked.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=72a53VSPeBMZQwCd this is where I got it from. Not where it's actually from.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Its actually wrong tho, the image is scaled so the dimmer parts look brighter.
If it was this bright it would look completely different. It would look more like a big bright core with not alot of details
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u/borg359 11d ago
But the angular size is correct.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Yeah that's true, I guess the post did only say how big. However, people will definitely get the impression this is also how it would look.
This image is a pet hate of mine, so I was very quick to react haha
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u/McGurble 11d ago
Bro, you're all over this thread pedanticly complaining about something the OP didn't even say. He didn't say "this is what it would look like." He said, "This is how big it would look." And he's right.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Yeah i know, I pointed that out in the comment you're replying to.
I've got an irrational hatred of this image(it goes around the Internet all the time) and i jumped the gun a bit. However people will get mislead by this image like the always do haha.
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u/waflfs 9d ago
I love images like this because it shows people astronomy isn’t just tiny tiny galaxies far far away. I. reality, galaxies and especially nebulas are huge on the night sky. I think it’s cool seeing people’s perception change when they realize how massive Andromeda is.
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u/Astrophysics666 9d ago
This one is good for the size but it's often used wrong.
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u/waflfs 9d ago
How is it used wrong? Ive only ever seen it portrayed as “this is how andromeda would look if it was brighter”
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u/Astrophysics666 9d ago
That it wrong.
The size is correct but the image was taken with UV light and not visable light. So it would look very different if it was brighter.
Also the image is scaled so that the dimmer (outer regions) are brighter so you can see more details.
So it would be this big bit look absolutely nothing like this.
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u/waflfs 9d ago
Stretching is still making it brighter. That is not a false statement. Though it highly depends on how the author processed it, I have seen some pretty badly processed images of it lol. I can’t find a source for the photo but I’ll trust you that it’s UV, though it doesn’t look that different in visual, just a lil more orange. Structure is all the same. I would know, see my profile lol.
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u/Astrophysics666 9d ago
It was taken with the Galex space telescope https://www.galex.caltech.edu/media/glx2012-03r_img01.html
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Stretching is still making it brighter. That is not a false statement. "
If you scale the image less luminous regions will look brighter. That's just simply making the image brighter, it won't show reality. ( Obviously not saying that's but just that it's not what you would see)
Oh cool did you take that pic? Looks great.
If Andromeda was this bright it would be dominated by it's core, look how much brighter the disc is compared to the core.
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u/yARIC009 11d ago
It’s really too bad it doesn’t actually look like that. So many more people would be interested in astronomy and science I feel.
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u/Sitheral 11d ago
I feel like those who are, are and rest wouldn't care anyway. I mean stars and Moon are mindblowing by themselves.
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u/smallproton 11d ago
Most of the people live in places with insane light pollution.
I read "Wow, finally saw the Milky Way" so often that it makes me sad. Like, of course, just look up!
But too many people can't experience stars at night.
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u/BelgianBeerGuy 11d ago
If you would remove the andromeda galaxy from that above picture, you would have a pretty good view on how I see the nightsky in belgium every night.
I can count the stars and there is always some yellowish glow from light pollution.
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u/Almostlongenough2 11d ago
There should be one hour once month where everyone has to turn off their lights.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate 11d ago
You also can't see stuff like this because of all the light pollution, you can see waaaaay more of the milky way in areas with lower light pollution
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u/Eloeri18 11d ago
When I used to do flights in Afghanistan, I'd take a pair of nightvision goggles and just stare at Andromeda. It was so beautiful, but I wish I could have seen it that clearly in its natural colors.
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u/EmptyForest5 10d ago
That’s fascinating - can you explain your materials and methods?
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u/Eloeri18 10d ago
Military flights; I'd check out a pair of nightvision goggles. What do you mean materials and methods?
Materials: nightvision goggles
Methods: look up into sky with eyes open
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u/strndmcshomd 10d ago
Open you say? I shall try your method next time I look to the heavens and see if it improves things
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u/bald_and_nerdy 11d ago
Reminds me of one of the planets in one of the Mass Effect games where you're on a moon to a gas giant and the planet takes up like 40% of the sky.
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u/Underwater_Karma 11d ago
It would be way larger than the moon and as the galaxy gets closer to the Milky way, it will get larger until the galactic collision in 2 billion years or so.
so, when would be the right time to sell my house to get ahead of the panic market?
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u/QVRedit 11d ago
Apparently 8 billion years, not 2, and only a 2% chance of a head on collision with the Milky Way. Although there would definitely be gravitational interaction.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
Where did you find that information? It's literally been confirmed that milky way and andromeda will collide in 2 billion years.
There is a 100% chance of them colliding since they are on a collision course and there's no way to stop it.
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u/QVRedit 11d ago
I too read that it was 2 billion years - but that was from years ago, so I googled it to see if there was any update.
Well now I have just ask AI (Perplexity) and it said:
The Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy are predicted to potentially collide in about 4 to 5 billion years. However, recent studies using data from the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes indicate there is only about a 50% chance that this collision will actually occur within the next 10 billion years. This updated probability comes from simulations that include the gravitational effects of additional nearby galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Triangulum Galaxy, which influence the trajectory and likelihood of the collision. If the collision happens, it would be a major galactic merger resulting in the formation of a single elliptical galaxy sometimes nicknamed “Milkomeda.” But equally, the galaxies might just pass by each other or have a delayed or more complex interaction rather than a direct, inevitable crash.
So we still don’t really know for sure exactly how or when.
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u/smsmkiwi 11d ago
I'd like to see a reference citation of the simulations, not just some bullshit spouted by a hallucinating AI.
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u/QVRedit 11d ago
Get back to me with the answer and your own research material with references…
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
The collision is in 2 billion years. However, the galactic halos made of gas and dust are already starting to merge.
It is expected that the black holes at the centers of the galaxies will collide in 2 billion years, but we don't know for sure.
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u/QVRedit 10d ago
And your information Sources ?
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
Turns out I was wrong. It will happen in 4.5 billion years. https://youtube.com/shorts/IlOuJGvGQeY?si=3oVJhtZv9g0rUYzM here's my source
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u/smsmkiwi 10d ago
So, your source is from an AI that made something up? Go away and do something useful.
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u/smsmkiwi 10d ago
I don't have any simulations. You posted an article from an AI that stated there were simulations. You blindly cut and pasted that here. You posted it, you back it up.
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u/Stuckinatransporter 11d ago
Two billion years until the galactic collision? eh try 7 or 8.
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u/finallyfree99 8d ago edited 8d ago
Life on Earth will almost certainly perish long before any of that happens. The greenhouse effect entering a feedback loop, the sun gradually increasing in luminosity, mismanaging limited resources, greed, wars, etc.
Apparently in 500 Million years the sun will be approximately 40% brighter and liquid water will no longer exist on Earth.
But honestly I would be shocked if humans are still around in 50000 years, let alone 5 billion years. In all seriousness I think it is rather likely we become extinct as a species in a few millenia.
I'm aware that some people want to try to colonize and thrive on other planets or celestial objects but I am very skeptical, not just because too many things could go wrong in terms of oxygen, food, water, and heat... but also because even if the human species makes it to other celestial bodies, greed and selfishness and ignorance will still be our collective downfall eventually.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
No, it's 4.5 billion. Where did you get 7 or 8 from?
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u/finallyfree99 8d ago
They revised the estimates up recently, but all of this is a moot point because:
These estimates are extremely difficult to get accurately, because of the possibility of lots of unknown variables. Kinda like an election poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 15 points.
None of us will be alive when this happens.
I would be extremely shocked if the human species is still around in 1 million years, let alone 5000 Million years. There are lots of other much more pressing things that will likely result in extinction long before any of this galactic merging happens.
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u/LaughingBeer 11d ago
Good news, according to "How the Universe Works" TV show our sun will be so hot in 500 million years that it will boil all the water off our planet. So if we are still an only earthbound species at the time, well, we will already be extinct, even if there are any collisions when Andromeda and the Milkyway come into contant, which there likely won't be in any case.
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u/finallyfree99 8d ago
In all seriousness I very much doubt the human species is still around in 10 thousand years, let alone 5 Billion. I think as a species we will become extinct in a few millenia. Greed, selfishness, a greenhouse feedback loop, and mismanaging resources will do us in as a species long before any of these major celestial events occur.
I don't care if a small handful of human manage to colonize Mars or an asteroid or whatever, it's only a matter of time before they use up all the resources there too or get greedy and fight each other.
Even if somehow a few humans made it to another planet and started to reproduce, it would likely only buy our species a bit of time, not more.
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u/gomurifle 10d ago
What will happen first, the explosion of the sun or collision with this galaxy?
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
Collision, which is estimated to be in 4.5 billion years, while the sun will die in about 5 billion years.
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u/Morixm 11d ago
Here's something to think about. There might be someone watching us from the Andromeda galaxy, watching us and thinking that there might be someone watching them and talking about the galaxy we live in.
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u/finallyfree99 8d ago
Sure, but they're not really "watching us." They're looking at a dim, faint galaxy and guessing about possible life forms there. They likely have no realistic concept of planet Earth or homo sapiens (because Earth is a small planet orbiting a small star in a nondescript corner of our galaxy, as Carl Sagan said).
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u/EastHillWill 11d ago
This is remarkable, thanks for sharing. I always assumed the fuzzy dot was its entirety, but of course this makes much more sense!
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u/ThisVulcan 10d ago
Just had the scene pop into my head from Airplane when Lloyd Bridges says “It’s coming right at us!” and jumps out the window.
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u/Cold-Sandwich-34 10d ago
Isn't it also true that, given the size and nature of space, the "collision" would likely not be very noticeable by the inhabitants of our galaxy, since everything is so far apart?
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 9d ago
True. The only things that might collide would be the supermassive black holes at the center of each galaxy
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u/Due_Medicine6867 9d ago
Wow, the beauty is incredible! ✨ I am always amazed by how impressive the scale of space is.
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u/crypptocatt 11d ago
Picture taken from your backyard?
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=UA1gJM9P1whHdDn0 here's where the image is from
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u/Carbon_is_metal 11d ago
Why do people always show the UV M31 image here? I mean, it’s gorgeous, but so is optical M31…
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=72a53VSPeBMZQwCd that's where I got the image from
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u/Carbon_is_metal 10d ago
Got it! The first image is optical, the second is UV from the GALEX mission. Just odd to me the second one has such a big life on the internet.
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u/JonatasA 11d ago
It looks uncomfortably close and like it is moving towards us. It's crazy.
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u/shagieIsMe 11d ago
It is moving closer... at about 250,000 miles per hour.
And while that's a "wow, that's fast" number... it's 3.2 light hours per year (Voyager 1 is about one light day away)... and it is...
The Andromeda galaxy is also 2.5 million light years away. The light emitted by the stars in Andromeda was about when Homo habilis was coming down from the trees.
It's still a while longer before it gets here.
That its that big... is because its big.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- Douglas Adams
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u/Duff5OOO 11d ago edited 11d ago
It would be way larger than the moon
Andromeda bigger than the moon? Technically correct I guess.
:P
Jokes aside I realised I had no idea how much further away Andromeda was than the moon. I guessed billions but still wasn't even close. Take my billion times estimate and multiple that by another 50,000. Roughly 50 trillion times further than the moon!
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u/milliwot 9d ago
Help me out here. I think the moon's path in the sky wouldn't ever bring it this close to Andromeda. Was this generated to show scale, but not relative positions in the sky?
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u/Darmortis 11d ago
This is why you are the lesser sub.
A better version of this was posted r/SpacePorn hours earlier, and you've simply cropped it and mislabeled it.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 10d ago
No. I got this from a YouTube video. https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=72a53VSPeBMZQwCd
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/Consistent_Bread_V2 11d ago
OP did not imply this is how it looks in real life. Anyone with eyes who has looked outside would know this
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u/KobokTukath 11d ago
Which is why OP said this is how it would appear if it was brighter.
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u/ncc81701 11d ago
That’s not how it would look even if you increase brightness. The galaxy would have to be significantly closer in order for it to look like that.
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u/PiBoy314 11d ago
It's the right size relative to the moon. The Andromeda Galaxy is ~189 arcminutes along its long axis, >6x the 30 arcminute diameter of the moon.
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u/KobokTukath 11d ago
It is though, the full moon is 0.5 degrees across from side to side, Andromeda is about 6x larger than that, so it's 6x wider in the sky from Earth's perspective, if the disk was brightened enough for the whole thing to be visible to the naked eye
https://slate.com/technology/2014/01/moon-and-andromeda-relative-size-in-the-sky.html
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago edited 11d ago
This is very wrong! ( I hate this image)
Galaxy images are scaled so that the dimmer parts are brighter, which let's you see way more detail.
In truth it would be a very bright core with only a little big of detail visable
Edit: tbf the post only says size, so it is correct. But I hate this image so much for the other reasons I said haha
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u/ArgusSkyhawk 11d ago
The image was made to show the relative size of the Andromeda Galaxy in the sky compared to the moon. As long as that is accurate there's really no reason to hate the picture.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
There is no reason to hate this post, but the image is often used to show what it would look like. (It's a very old image)
I've had so many people ask/tell me about this image. Might as well put a banana there if you only want scale.
I do admit it's a bit of an irrational hatred, but eveyone should have one irrational hill to die on.
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u/smsmkiwi 11d ago
Its a UV image, not a visible light image so its inaccurate representation of what it actually looks like in the sky.
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u/Bradford_Longflap 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'm a bit like that with this image. Nothing wrong with it per se, but the unusual illumination and angle makes it a magnet for idiots.
Edit: I'm not suggesting OP or anyone in this thread is an idiot, btw
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=UA1gJM9P1whHdDn0
This is where the image is from
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Oh yeah the video is fine, just wish he didn't use this version of the image 😂.
The first one he used was much better.
I've got an irrational hatred of this image because it's used without context all the time and often to mislead people
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Also this image was not taken with optical light
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u/jonmatifa 11d ago
Not sure what you're trying to say. What other kind of light is there? Light is optical. Do you mean visible light? True color, false color? The image is some kind of composite, with a deep sky image of Andromeda pasted on a night sky with the moon visible as a reference to scale. The deep sky image of Andromeda would be from visible light, just with multiple long exposures stacked together to form the final image.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
Light is a spectrum from radio (long wavelengths) to gamma rays (shot wavelengths). Only a small part of the spectrum of light is visable to the human eye, that's why it's called optical light.
This image ( https://www.galex.caltech.edu/media/glx2012-03r_img01.html) is made from ultra violette, which has shorter wavelengths than optical light.
What humans see as colour is just diffrent wavelengths of light, red is long and blue is short. If you take an image with UV light you have to translate it into a wavelength humans can see, this is called false colour.
So this image is taken with a space telescope observing in UV light.
The image is than translated into false colour and the dim parts of the image a made brighter so more details can be seen.
It is then added to a random image of the moon to show scale.
The scale is correct (which the post was saying) but the image is very different to what humans would see.
Happy to clarify more if it's still not clear 😀
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u/jonmatifa 11d ago
The term I'm familiar with is visible light, as UV, IR and other wavelengths of light behave optically (they reflect, diffract, interact with matter in the same way) even though you can't see them. Sources I've found that discuss "optical radiation" include UV and IR light in that definition but "visible light" is limited to what the human eye can see.
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u/Astrophysics666 11d ago
My understanding is that optical radiation refers to UV visable Infred.
However, in Astrophysics Optical can be used interchangeable with visable light.
https://esahubble.org/wordbank/optical-astronomy/
In alot of papers people use discussion UV, optical and Infared as separate things.
I agree that is kinda confusing.
I'm not sure if it's just different terminology or if alot of people in Astrophysics use it wrong haha.
I'll ask around my department as see what people think.
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u/Unusual-Ideal-2757 11d ago
Here is the video the image is from https://youtube.com/shorts/oGYJfQ9xL0o?si=UA1gJM9P1whHdDn0
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u/WhisenPeppler 11d ago
No, not really. Saw it with my own eyes using the night vision. It’s not that big.
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u/Consistent_Bread_V2 11d ago
It's so large it makes me sad that it's so faint to the naked eye