You can see the Andromeda Galaxy without a telescope this week, but you’ll need to escape the city lights

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or M31, looks like a faint, blurry patch in the constellation Andromeda. It lies far beyond the Milky Way, the galaxy that is home to our solar system. Andromeda is so far away that the light we see today began its journey toward Earth about 2.5 million years ago.