M31 | Andromeda Galaxy

I remember standing in my kitchen the night I captured the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time, fighting back tears in awe of what I was seeing.

There it is: a trillion stars, 2.5 million light-years away, the closest big galaxy to ours. Nearly six full moons across in our night sky, but you can barely see it with the naked eye. Just a faint smudge in the distance. And while the rest of the universe is busy hurtling away from us, Andromeda is darting toward us.

A few billion years from now, around the time the Sun has swollen large enough to engulf the Earth, Andromeda and the Milky Way will merge. A couple trillion stars, with enough space between them that nothing will collide. And for millions of years before it happens, the view from our place in the cosmos will be a spectacular night sky, with no one here to admire how beautiful it is.