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 by the then-thriving custom planet industry of Magrathea to run a ten-million-year program in which organic life would play a major role. Slartibartfast, a Magrathean designer, was involved in the project and signed his name among the fjords of Norway (an area that won him an award). Earth is also home to Arthur Dent and Trillian. Earth is located in Galactic Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" originally described Earth as ""harmless"" (the entry is short because of the limited amount of space the Guide possessed, what with the sheer size and content of the