The Andromeda Galaxy (a.k.a. M31) is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, about 2,500,000 lightyears away. Seen here in ultraviolet wavelengths, the bright blue sections of the galaxy are dominated mainly by very hot, young stars and very dense star clusters. M31 is the furthest stellar object visible in the night sky by the naked eye, visible on a moonless night with moderate light pollution. Although it appears nearly six times as wide as the full moon, only the bright central region of the galaxy is visible. In 2006, the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that M31 contains more than one trillion stars. In comparison, the Milky Way Galaxy only contains between 200 billion to 400 billion stars.
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