Andromeda

The Andromeda Galaxy took its name from Greek mythology and is the closest spiral galaxy to our own. The distance between Earth and Andromeda is more than two million light-years. (A “light-year” is a measure of distance, not time. One light-year is approximately 10 trillion kilometres, or 6 trillion miles.)

If we travelled in a spacecraft at a speed of 17 kilometres, or 10.5 miles, per second—the speed of Voyager 1—and the galaxies were stationary, a journey from Earth to Andromeda would take approximately 38 billion years. However, the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way (our galaxy) at a speed of more than 110 kilometres per second, and the two galaxies are expected to collide in approximately 3.75 to 4.5 billion years. As you can see, the journey has already become shorter.

But no journey is shorter than the journey of the imagination. The music track “Andromeda” offers a virtual journey from Earth to Andromeda in almost four minutes. Let the music guide you as you admire wonderful spacescapes from across the universe through artists’ impressions.