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> | The galaxy Andromeda is our nearest cosmic neighbor; only a few hundred
kiloparsecs away. Due to its proximity and the fact that it hosts
different stellar populations, including both young ones (in its spiral
arms) and old ones (in its bulge), it is an ideal location for the hunt of
varied kinds of variable stars and transient events.
As an example, given the sensitivity of ZTF (take R~21mag), at the
distance of M31, you can easily track the pulsation of stars brighter than
about -4mag---including those of Cepheids, and other giant stars. In fact,
during this 3-day-all sky survey, you can look at one of the Cepheids (at
Right Ascension of 11.29108 degrees and Declination of 41.50875 degrees)
breathe. These stars are also representative of young stellar population,
as they evolve from massive stars, and thus by following a
(pre-identified) group of them pulsate, you can trace the relatively young
parts of the galaxy. The wealth of variable phenomena that can be directly
observed in this galaxy makes it a crucial testbed for many astrophysical
stellar theories. Furthermore, "guest events" (otherwise invisible to ZTF)
tend to easily pop up here, for example, it is likely you will be able to
spot a thermonuclear flash from a white dwarf in a binary during the 3-day
period. |
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