NASA Shares Incredible Photo of Neighboring Galaxy
All things considered, our solar system is relatively close to the center of the Milky Way. Our galaxy is somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 light-years across, meaning it'd take us billions of years to traverse out of it in a best possible scenario. Once we we got out of our home galaxy, however, the next system we could arrive at would be the Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away from the Sun at the center of our solar system.
NASA just released a photo it once captured of our neighboring galaxy in incredible detail with stars and cosmic dust swirling about in beautiful patterns.
"Our neighbor in space, the immense Andromeda galaxy, is captured in this image taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Located about 2.5 million light-years from our Sun, Andromeda is the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy," NASA shared alongside the photo.
It added, "This galactic mosaic is a four-color composite using all of WISE's infrared detectors, where blue represents far-ultraviolet light, green represents mid-way ultraviolet light, and red is near-ultraviolet light. The galaxy's backbone of mature stars is visible in blue, while the yellow and red rings show dust heated by newborn, massive stars."
The space agency went on to point that both the Milky Way and Andromeda are a part of our astronomers call The Local Group, a "neighborhood" in space consisting of roughly 50 galaxies or so. If you plan on visiting the Andromeda Galaxy anytime soon, you may want to do your best to find a wormhole. NASA suggests that even by traveling at the incredible rate of 38,000 mph, it'd still take you 40 billion years to reach our neighboring system group. In comparison, scientists think our universe has existed for approximately 14 billion years.
For the record, James Gunn has previously suggested the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise largely takes place within the Andromeda Galaxy.
"First part takes place in Andromeda," the filmmaker said last fall. "Ego is further away, in a galaxy on the edge of the universe, probably MACS0647-JD or something."
As it turns out, The Benatar can travel fast.
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