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
Myth of the flat Earth Boston College theology professor and ex-priest Thomas Groome erroneously stated that "the Catholic Church never said the earth is round, but just stopped saying it was flat." The 1937 popular song "They All Laughed" contains the couplet "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus/When he said the world was round". In the Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" cartoon "Hare We Go" (1951) Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand the Catholic quarrel about the shape of the Earth; the king states the Earth is flat. In Walt Disney's 1963 animation "The Sword in the Stone", wizard Merlin (who has traveled into the future) explains to