Galaxies take on a fascinatingly different character when viewed in the infrared. Each type of galaxy reveals more about its nature, from the distribution of stars to the structure of dust clouds.
Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy, around 2.5 million light years away. Once thought to be a twin of our Milky Way, its strangely different structure is very evident in the infrared. While it is a spiral galaxy, the dust falls largely in a huge ring structure, possibly caused by gravitational interactions with its smaller satellite galaxies.
