I thought galaxies had names describing the way they look or scientific names?

Question

that only scientists understand? So what's with the name Andromeda? I know the name itself is from myth, but aren't mythological names ascribed to planets?

I didn't ask about constellations or why the moon is called the "moon."

Answer 1

Most galaxies, star clusters etc are classified in the Messier catalogue, and are known by the letter M followed by a number. The Pleiades star cluster of some 500 stars is M45 for example. Andromeda is a constellation (near Perseus) and the galaxy you are talking about, M31, the nearest one to us (to the Milky Way) is simply part of that constellation, and that is why the name creeps in.

It used to be called the Andromeda Nebula but more recently has been referred to as the Andromeda Galaxy. Perhaps that is why the name is an oddball. It got reclassified but got stuck with the same name.

Wikipedia says:

The Andromeda Galaxy (also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224; older texts often call it the Andromeda Nebula) is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda, which lies in the northern hemisphere of the sky.

Andromeda was believed to be the largest galaxy of the Local Group of galaxies, which consists of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies. Due to recent findings based on improved measurements and data, scientists now believe that the Milky Way contains more dark matter and may be the most massive in the grouping.

However, recent observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that M31 contains one trillion (10^12) stars, greatly exceeding the number of stars in our own galaxy.

The Andromeda Galaxy is easily visible to the naked eye in a moderately dark sky, though such a sky is available only in smaller towns and isolated areas reasonably far from population centers and sources of light pollution. It appears quite small to the eye because only the central part is bright enough to be visible, but the full angular diameter of the galaxy is seven times that of the full moon.

Answer 2

Some of the brighter objects, such as the Andromeda Galaxy , have popular names. The Andromeda Galaxy is named after the constellation it appears in. Many of the traditional constellations have names from mythology.

Other galaxies have descriptive popular names, such as Sunflower Galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy, etc.

But all these galaxies have one or more catalog designations. The Andromeda Galaxy is also known as M31 and NGC 224. The Messier (M) objects are a list of 109 or 110 objects cataloged by Charles Messier in the late 1700's. NGC stands for New General Catalogue, which was a list of virtually all known objects when it was published in 1887. It contains nearly 8000 objects. There are numerous other catalogs, some of them for particular types of objects.

Answer 3

Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 A.D.) named over half of the current 88 constellations that is why many names come from the Greek and their mythology.

Magellanic Clouds: named for Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator whose ships were the first to voyage around the world in 1519-1522. The Large Magellanic Cloud is the closest galaxy to Earth at only 170,000 light years away.

Centaurus A (NGC 5128): is a radio galaxy in the constellation Centaurus.

NGC 5236 (M83): is a spiral galaxy in Hydra with no common name. It is a galaxy very much like our own, the Milky Way.

Sombrero Galaxy (NGC 4594 [M104]): named from the broad-brimmed Mexican Hat. It is one of the most spectacular galaxies.

These are only a few examples of common names that certain galaxies receive. Others are Triangulum, Whirpool, Sunflower, Black-Eye, Pinwheel, and Spindle Galaxy.

Answer 4

the Andromeda galaxy get's it's name because when you look at it it's in the Andromeda constellation. . . a lot of the names werent' exactly given by modern astronomers, the constellations have been in use for millenia as navigation points, modern names arn't even really names they're numbers. And who said that mythological names could only be applied to planets?

Answer 5

Did you know that the sky has been around longer than scientists? People named things they saw in the sky long before scientists started to do it.

For example, do you think scientists named the moon? Take a look at what my dictionary says about the origin of the word:

ORIGIN: Old English mōna, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch maan and German Mond, also to month , from an Indo-European root shared by Latin mensis and Greek mēn ‘month,’ and also Latin metiri ‘to measure’ (the moon being used to measure time).

So a lot of old names are still used for things in the sky.

;-D I like the old names better too. What fun is Barnard 33?
That is the Horsehead Nebula.

Answer 6

"Andromeda" is just short for the popular name "Great Galaxy in Andromeda" Andromeda is the constellation where the direction of this close-enough-to-appear-big galaxy lies. Otherwise it is known as M31 (31st entry in Charles Messier's pioneering catalog of non-stellar objects) or NGC 224 (of the New General Catalog of star cluster and nebuae -- which is numbered according to their "Right Ascension" -- look it up).

Answer 7

possibly this could be by way of black holes or possibly some thing a community government is as much as, yet is classed from NASA. we actually do no longer comprehend... hypothesis does not provide us any conclusions as of yet, in basic terms possible leads. must be as you seem to take a position, If God is giving us a sign, yet lower back we ought to anticipate genuine conclusiveness. If God is able to cloak non secular imaginative and prescient of issues & technological know-how can't degree issues in this realm... then he's likewise greater desirable than able to cloaking sounds interior the non secular realm. in basic terms time will tell.

Answer 8

Let's just say astronomers aren't the most creative bunch out of all of us...

They like mythos name, or famous scientist names... or... just letters and number...