IMAGE: The Andromeda Galaxy Is Our Nearest Neighbor; Damn Sexy.

Ah, the Andromeda Galaxy. It is our nearest galactic buddy in the Local Cluster, and as you can tell from this work of Rock it is quite swanky. Look at it, all a mere 2.5 million light-years away. Taunting us with its splendor.

NASA:

A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy really is  just next door  as large galaxy’s go.  So close, and spanning  some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from the  Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)  satellite’s telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. While its spiral arms  stand out  in visible light images of Andromeda (also known as M31), the arms look more like rings in  the GALEX ultraviolet view, dominated by hot, young, massive stars. As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted has evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The large  Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way  are the dominant members of the  local galaxy group.

Shine on, you Crazy Galaxy.