Rising in the northern skies and visible even to the naked eye from dark locations, M31 is the closest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way — and the largest member of our Local Group.
In this deep exposure, you can spot not only its dusty spiral arms and bright HII star-forming regions, but also its elliptical satellite galaxies M32 and M110, orbiting like cosmic moons.
Located about 2.5 million light-years away, Andromeda is approaching the Milky Way at over 100 km/s. In roughly 4 billion years, both galaxies are expected to merge into a single elliptical giant.