NASA shares new views of our galactic neighbor, Andromeda

RISE Rundown:

* NASA has released a new composite image of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), our closest spiral galactic neighbor, combining data from various powerful telescopes across different wavelengths (X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio) to reveal new details about its structure and evolution, including high-energy radiation around its supermassive black hole.
* Andromeda played a crucial role in the discovery of dark matter, with astronomer Vera Rubin’s observations in the 1960s showing that galaxies rotate faster than visible matter alone could explain, leading to the theory of this unseen material that makes up the majority of the universe’s mass.
* The multi-wavelength data from Andromeda has also been released as a sonification, translating different types of light into varying pitches and volumes, while NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is specifically designed to further explore the nature of dark matter using gravitational lensing.