Andromeda galaxy
1
5.8
- proper noun
- /ˌændrəˈmɛdə ˈɡæləksi/
:
galaxia de Andrómeda
- The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way, located about two million light-years away.
Chuck Jana casually implied correctly that our Galaxy is going to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy.
- Chuck Jana casually implied correctly that our Galaxy is going to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy.
- And he was looking at the largest of the spirals that we see in the night sky, which today we know as the Andromeda Galaxy.
- And he was looking at the largest of these spirals that we see in the night sky, which today we know as the Andromeda Galaxy.
- I mean, realistically, the culture would look over at the Andromeda Galaxy and be like, oh, you mean spaceflight?
Examples
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"Who wants to be the first to see the Andromeda galaxy?" It was a cool October night in Norris, Tenn., a small town nestled in the Appalachian foothills, and a number of people were taking turns at telescopes on the hilltop.
Academic text (1995) -
You can see the Andromeda galaxy from Earth on clear nights without a telescope.
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Turns out that the Andromeda Galaxy shown here is approaching us.
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The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 million light-years away.
Blog text (34) -
Although the Andromeda Galaxy is distant, it can be seen with the unaided eye.
Academic text (1991) -
The Andromeda galaxy, our nearest full-grown neighbor, is about 1 Mpc away.
Academic text (1998) -
A little over two million light-years from Earth, the Andromeda Galaxy is thought to contain about half again as many stars as are in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Academic text (1991) -
To astronomers, mention of the "Andromeda galaxy" calls forth an image of a majestic spiral galaxy ("what's that?") located 2 million light-years ("how long is a light-year?") away.
Academic text (1995) -
Astronomers study the Andromeda galaxy to learn more about galaxy formation and evolution.
Synonyms
10
7.7
A large spiral galaxy near the Milky Way visible from Earth
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward compositional noun phrase: the proper name 'Andromeda' identifies which galaxy, and 'galaxy' gives the category, so the phrase simply means the galaxy called Andromeda (the nearby major galaxy). The name+category pattern is cross-linguistically regular, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can derive the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Andromeda galaxy gets its name from the old Greek story of Princess Andromeda; people long ago saw a faint, cloudy patch in the sky and imagined her shape there. Because that patch is actually a huge group of stars near our Milky Way, the name Andromeda galaxy came to mean this large, spiral galaxy that we can sometimes see without a telescope.