Andromeda is a
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
in the northern sky. It is named after
AndromedaAndromeda is a princess from Greek mythology who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, the Boast of Cassiopeia, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. She was saved from death by Perseus, her future husband. Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ἀνδρομέδη...
, the princess in the
Greek legendGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
of
PerseusPerseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
who was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster
CetusIn ancient Greek, the word ketos - Latinized as cetus - denotes a large fish, a whale, a shark, or a sea monster. The sea monsters slain by Perseus and Heracles were each referred to as a cetus by ancient sources. The term cetacean originates from cetus. In Greek art, cetea were depicted as...
. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.
Alternate names
Andromeda is sometimes called "the Chained Lady" or "the Chained Woman" in English (
Mulier Catenata in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, and
al-Mar'at al Musalsalah in Arabic). It has also been called
Persea ("Perseus's wife") or
Cepheis ("Cepheus's daughter").
Stars
- α And
Alpha Andromedae , which has the traditional names Alpheratz and Sirrah , is the brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda. Located immediately northeast of the constellation of Pegasus, it is the northeastern star of the Great Square of Pegasus...
(Alpheratz, Sirrah) is the brightest starA star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
in this constellation. It is a binary starA binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
with an overall apparent visual magnitude of 2.06m. This star forms an asterismIn astronomy, an asterism is a pattern of stars recognized on Earth's night sky. It may form part of an official constellation, or be composed of stars from more than one. Like constellations, asterisms are in most cases composed of stars which, while they are visible in the same general direction,...
known as the "Great Square of Pegasus" with three stars in PegasusPegasus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.-Stars:...
: αAlpha Pegasi is the third brightest star in the constellation Pegasus and one of the four stars in the asterism known as the Great Square of Pegasus. It has the traditional name Markab .Markab is a relatively average star nearing the end of its stellar evolution on the main sequence...
, βBeta Pegasi is a star in the constellation Pegasus. Its traditional name is Scheat, a name that has also been used for Delta Aquarii....
, and γ PegGamma Pegasi is a star in the constellation of Pegasus. It also has the traditional name Algenib; confusingly however, this name is also used for Alpha Persei....
. As such, the star was formerly considered to belong to both Andromeda and Pegasus, and was co-designated as "Delta Pegasi (δ Peg)", although this name is no longer formally used.
- β And
Beta Andromedae is a red giant star in the constellation of Andromeda. It has the traditional name Mirach . It has spectral class M0, and is approximately 200 light years away...
(Mirach) is located in an asterism known as the "girdle". It is 200 light yearsLight Years is the seventh studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue. It was released on 25 September 2000 by Parlophone and Mushroom Records. The album's style was indicative of her return to "mainstream pop dance tunes"....
distant and of magnitude 2.1m.
- γ And
Gamma Andromedae is the third brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda. It is also known by the traditional name Almach , from the Arabic العناق الأرض al-‘anāq al-’arđ̧ "the caracal" .Another term for this star used by medieval astronomers...
(Almach) is found at the tip of the southern leg of the big "A". It is a multiple starA multiple star consists of three or more stars which appear from the Earth to be close to one another in the sky. This may result from the stars being physically close and gravitationally bound to each other, in which case it is physical, or this closeness may be merely apparent, in which case...
with contrasting colors.
- δ And is a 3rd magnitude star.
- ι And
Iota Andromedae is a star in the constellation Andromeda.Iota Andromedae is a blue-white B-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +4.29...
forms, with κKappa Andromedae is a star in the constellation Andromeda.Kappa Andromedae is a blue-white B-type subgiant with an apparent magnitude of +4.15. It is approximately 170 light years from Earth.-References:*...
, λLambda Andromedae is a binary star in the constellation Andromeda. It is approximately 84.2 light years from Earth....
, and ψ AndPsi Andromedae is a double star system in the constellation Andromeda. It is approximately 1310 light years from Earth. The system consists of a spectroscopic binary with a yellow G-type supergiant and a white A-type main sequence dwarf. It has a combined apparent magnitude of +4.97.-References:*...
, an asterism known as "Frederik's Glory", a name derived from a former constellationFormer constellations are constellations that are no longer recognized by the International Astronomical Union for various reasons. Many of these constellations existed for long periods of time, even centuries in many cases, which means they still have a large historical value and can be found on...
Frederici HonoresFrederici Honores or Honores Friderici or Gloria Frederica was a constellation created by Johann Bode in 1787 to honor Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia who had died in the previous year. It was located in a region between the constellations Cepheus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia and Cygnus...
.
- υ And
Upsilon Andromedae is a binary star located approximately 44 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. The primary star is a yellow-white dwarf star that is somewhat younger than the Sun...
is a binary system, of one F-type dwarf and a M-type dwarf. The primary star has a planetary systemA planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, dwarf planets , asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust...
with four confirmed planetsAn extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
, 0.96 times, 14.57 times, 10.19 times and 1.06 the mass of JupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
.
- ξ And
Xi Andromedae is a binary star in the constellation Andromeda. It bears the traditional name Adhil, which is derived from the Arabic الذيل að-ðayl "the train"...
(Adhil) is a binary starA binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
.
- n And (33 And) was a former designation for M31, the Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
.
- 51 And
51 Andromedae is a 4th magnitude star, the 5th brighest in the constellation Andromeda. It does not have a Bayer designation. It is occasionally called by the proper name Nembus in Bayer's Uranometria and Bode's star atlas Uranographia .Ptolemy included this star in Andromeda in the Almagest, but...
was reassigned by Johann BayerJohann Bayer was a German lawyer and uranographer . He was born in Rain, Bavaria, in 1572. He began his study of philosophy in Ingolstadt in 1592, and moved later to Augsburg to begin work as a lawyer. He grew interested in astronomy during his time in Augsburg...
to neighbouring Perseus, where he designated it "Upsilon Persei (υ Per)", but it was returned to Andromeda by the International Astronomical Union.
- 54 And was a former designation for φ Per
Phi Persei is a Class B2Vpe, fourth-magnitude star in the constellation Perseus. Due to its isolation and distance from Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the rest of Perseus, John Flamsteed never took thought to assign a number and constellation to Phi Persei.Phi Persei is binary consisting of a blue main...
.
Deep sky objects
The most famous deep sky object in Andromeda is the
spiral galaxyA spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...
Messier 31 or the
Andromeda GalaxyThe Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
, one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye (Messier 33, the
Triangulum GalaxyThe Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598, and is sometimes informally referred to as the Pinwheel Galaxy, a nickname it shares with Messier 101...
, is slightly farther). It is an enormous spiral
galaxyA galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
much like the
Milky WayThe Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
. To find the galaxy, draw a line between β and
μ AndMu Andromedae is a star in the constellation Andromeda. It is approximately 136 light years from Earth.Mu Andromedae is a white A-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +3.86.-References:...
, and extend the line approximately the same distance again from μ And.
Meteor showers
In November, the
AndromedidsThe Andromedids meteor shower is associated with the comet 3D/Biela, the showers occurring as the earth's orbit passes through the tail of the comet...
meteor shower appears to radiate from Andromeda.
Illustrations
When the constellation is envisioned as representing the princess Andromeda, α Andromedae is normally considered to mark her head. However, the star's traditional Arabic names mean "horse" and "navel".
Several other nearby constellations are associated with the myth of
AndromedaAndromeda is a princess from Greek mythology who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, the Boast of Cassiopeia, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. She was saved from death by Perseus, her future husband. Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ἀνδρομέδη...
, including
CassiopeiaCassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopea was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today...
(her mother),
CepheusCepheus is a constellation in the northern sky. It is named after Cepheus, King of Aethiopia in Greek mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.-Stars:...
(her father),
CetusCetus is a constellation. Its name refers to Cetus, a sea monster in Greek mythology, although it is often called 'the whale' today. Cetus is located in the region of the sky that contains other water-related constellations such as Aquarius, Pisces, and Eridanus.-Ecliptic:Although Cetus is not...
(the monster),
PerseusPerseus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the Greek hero Perseus. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union...
(her saviour) and
PegasusPegasus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.-Stars:...
(his horse).
Equivalents
In
Chinese astronomyAstronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...
, the stars of Andromeda correspond to two areas of the sky known as the
Black Tortoise of the NorthThe Black Tortoise is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the Black Warrior of the North , and is known as Xuanwu in Chinese, Genbu in Japanese, Hyeonmu in Korean and Huyền Vũ in Vietnamese. It represents the north and the winter season...
(北方玄武,
Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ) and the
White Tiger of the West (西方白虎,
Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ).
Namesakes
The American naval vessel
USS Andromeda (AKA-15)USS Andromeda was an Andromeda class attack cargo ship named after the constellation Andromeda. She served as a commissioned ship for 13 years.- History :...
is named after the constellation.
The
High GuardThe High Guard is a fictional military organization in the TV series Andromeda.-History:Its origins can be traced back to a legendary Vedran male warrior, General Huascar Nax Yoweri, whose campaign of conquest across the three Galaxies produced the Vedran Empire...
starshipA starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
Andromeda AscendantThe Andromeda Ascendant is a fictional starship in the television series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.In the series, the ship is said to have begun her life in the Newport News Orbital Shipyards above Earth, where her keel was laid in CY 9768...
of the
Andromeda (TV series)Andromeda is a Canadian-American science fiction television series, based on unused material by the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, developed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and produced by Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry. It starred Kevin Sorbo as High Guard Captain Dylan Hunt...
, is named after the constellation.
External links