Andromeda (M 31) is the nearest giant spiral galaxy to our Milky Way, and over the past few decades, has been dubbed the most massive member of the Local Group. I explore the evolution of the measured mass of M 31 over the past ~80 years, reviewing the different observational and modelling techniques that have developed over time to measure its mass. I discuss the best present-day constraints of the mass of M 31 and the consistency of different techniques.
@article{arxiv.2305.03293,
title = {Weighing Andromeda: Mass estimates of the M~31 galaxy},
author = {Souradeep Bhattacharya},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.03293},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
9 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, Proceedings of the IAUS 379: Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies, Potsdam, March 20-24, 2023