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
Places in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy their new home "Fintlewoodlewix" (though obviously the name didn't stick). Earth is widely regarded with derision and scorn by most sentient beings in the galaxy. That most other races have shunned Earth is in part due to its primitive technological state and also for its invention of the game of cricket, an unfortunate product of racial memory that appears to make light of the horrendously genocidal Krikkit Wars, which right-thinking galactic citizens find immensely distasteful. Before the arrival of Ford Prefect and the Vogons, Earth's main form of extraterrestrial contact was with "teasers": bored rich kids who cruise the galaxy