Andromeda Galaxy Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy (), also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) from Earth, and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. Its name stems from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda. The 2006 observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that the Andromeda Galaxy contains approximately one trillion stars, more than twice the number of the Milky Way's estimated 200 to 400 billion stars. The Andromeda Galaxy's mass is estimated to be around 1.76 times that of the
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel) created Earth as an even greater computer to calculate the question to which 42 is the answer. Trillian's mice, actually part of the group of sentient and hyper-intelligent superbeings that had Earth created in the first place, reject the idea of building a second Earth to redo the process, and offer to buy Arthur's brain in the hope that it contains the question, leading to a fight when he declines. Zaphod saves Arthur when the brain is about to be removed, and the group decides to go to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. "The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide