Chandra Release - June 12, 2013

Visual Description: M31

The image features the Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), which is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away from Earth.  In the image, the Andromeda galaxy has a bright blue hue with pale yellow and rust highlights. The structure of the Andromeda galaxy is similar to that of our own Milky Way galaxy, with a central bulge surrounded by a disk of stars, gas, and dust. This wide-field view of Andromeda contains optical data from the Burrell Schmidt telescope. Additional detail of the core and dust in the spiral arms comes from an image taken by astrophotographer Vicent Peris using data from two of his personal telescopes. In this combined optical image, red, green, and blue show different bands from the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.  There is also a pullout box from the center showing an X-ray closeup of the central region.  The inset contains X-ray data from multiple Chandra observations of the central region of Andromeda, colored in bright purple. This Chandra image shows 28 of 35 black hole candidates in this view.