Andromeda (play) with Andromeda alone on stage, having been chained to a rock near the sea and near a cave by her father Cepheus, King of Aethiopia, to be eaten by a sea monster. This was to mollify the sea god Poseidon after either Cepheus or his wife Cassiopeia had offended the god. Andromeda laments her fate alone, with only her echo to respond. A chorus of virgins ("parthenoi") appears as Andromeda's lament continues. Then Perseus appears, using the crane to depict his flight on winged sandals, "planting my foot on high, cutting a path through the midst of the ether," having
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