Splashee

Hey Splashee, I've got a lot of photos to pour on your head/mane.

Seriously, get a sandwich!

Before we leave our beloved neighborhood behind, let's take one last close up look at our home. Specifically, I've highlighted the general area where the Sun is located in the Milky Way. We're quite far from the center, and that's probably for the best!

This little blob is where we are heading! This, my friend, is Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor! Located approximately 2.5 million light years away, this large galaxy was, for a long while, considered a nebula that was part of our own galaxy! It wasn't until we got better equipment and better understood stellar distances that we realized not only was  this object not in our galaxy at all, it was another galaxy entirely.

At 1 million light years, it's far more pronounced and we see thousands of other galaxies in the background. The redder the galaxies, the further away they are!

I stopped here and turned around to take a picture of the Milky Way too. Can you see it?

We are 500,000 light years away. Remember, a light year is the distance light travels in one year, so it's still going to take us 500,000 years to reach Andromeda. Good thing we have the magic of basic editing though! That's my proposed spin off of horse show: My Little Pony : Basic Editing is Magic. They rejected me.

100,000 light years now. We see a few of Andromeda's satellite galaxies here too. They aren't familiar with us, so they're hiding behind big bad Andromeda for protection. And I think it's actually trying to protect them. For some reason, every time I took one photo from here on in, the camera button got stuck and took like 6 at a time. Andromeda must be camera shy.

I don't know about you, but I see some stars here that could probably be a constellation. So your homework is going to be come up with a constellation, a name, and a back story!

It counts for three test grades.

We have seen a similar picture to this before, haven't we? This is the Milky Way from the Andromeda Galaxy.

And here is Andromeda from the Milky Way!

I practically tripped over this superneptune with aerial life and I had to take the picture. That planet in the distance is about .07 AU from this one. Quite large to still be seen in such detail I think!

I've tried on several occasions to find the Andromeda Galaxy's supermassive black hole and failed every time. I decided before I ended things off to try once more for you. I found this globular cluster in the center of the galaxy. I think we might have something here! Then again, I've found several other such clusters before only to wind up disappointed.

But this cluster seems different... 

Those stars in the middle, so close together... could it be? Well, there's one way to find out: Set the game in motion and watch to see if these stars begin orbiting around anything in frame. The stationary object would therefore be the black hole! Unfortunately I can't send videos or take videos from this program, so we'll have to deal with a time lapse of photos.

A-ha!

In all of its glory, Andromeda's Supermassive Black Hole! (From 300 AU)

As far as I can tell, this black hole does not have a given name unlike our own Sagittarius A*, but it is significantly larger than ours and is extremely active, at least in this game.

I think I'm going to hold off on diving into black holes until next time. This is already getting coo coo! So I will leave it there, but will have all sorts of cool pictures of it next time. Until then, keep looking up!