Exploring the beauty of the Andromeda galaxy (also known as Messier 31 or simply M31). The final close-up view is a Hubble Space Telescope image that “shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years.” — ESA. • The Andromeda galaxy is located ~2.5 million light-years away. It is the Milky Way’s largest galactic neighbor. The Andromeda galaxy spans ~260,000 light-years across and hosts a