@ 15. Nigel Depledge :Ah, I get it now. Not the comprised but the ‘of’. Cheers.

@ ^ Nigel Depledge : Whaa..? Sorry but isn’t “contained” a perfectly valid word? I’m not sure I get what you’re saying there. Its certainly new to me, I’ve always thought “comprised” was fine grammatically.

I’m not sure what you thought I said here. Reading my post #13 back, I can’t see any ambiguity.

What is wrong is “comprised of“. The of is meaningless.

Thus, BA should have said something more like:
It is composed of two colours . . .
or
It comprises two colours . . . .

I mention the word “contain” because “comprise” behaves the same. You would never use the phrase “contained of” would you?

So, for example, you might say that a six-pack contains 6 bottles of beer. You can equally say that a six-pack comprises 6 bottles of beer. Or you could say that a six-pack is composed of 6 bottles of beer. But one should never say that a six-pack is comprised of 6 bottles of beer. This last is ungrammatical.

As an aside : I just realised that “contained” has its own issues, because sometimes people use a preposition with “contain / contained” (such as “contained in”), which is similarly superfluous (although there are circumstances where “contained by” is perfectly grammatical).

@11. TMB :

The thing is, M32 is a pretty funny galaxy – it’s possibly the most compact galaxy we know in the entire universe (of course, part of that is a selection effect – more distant ones might be mistaken for stars),

Wouldn’t that be detected by spectroscopic analysis? When astronomers do stellar surveys isn’t it routine that they’ll take a spectrum and classify it so once they do sufficently detailed surveys shouldn’t M32-like compact dwarf gaaxies be discovered this way by having non-stellar galactic spectra?

Or are they too faint to be routinely picked up in this way?

It’s comprised of two colors: . . .

This is a surprisingly common mistake.

Either it is composed of two colours, or it comprises two colours. “Comprise” is like “contain” – the verb has no auxiliary.

If that is correct, then M32 should merge with M31 pretty quickly… maybe 2-3 more orbits, or a billion years. The thing is, M32 is a pretty funny galaxy – it’s possibly the most compact galaxy we know in the entire universe (of course, part of that is a selection effect – more distant ones might be mistaken for stars), which would make it more resilient to being tidally destroyed by M31. But on the flip side, it could well be that it got so strange because of its interaction with M31.

As for where the ring comes from in the first place… one intriguing possibility is the Giant Southern Stream, which is the tidal debris of something that once ran through the center of M31. We don’t really know what it was (i.e. whether it still exists or if it got completely destroyed), when it happened, how massive it was, etc… but we know from examples like the Pinwheel Galaxy that when a small galaxy plows through the center of a big one, you can easily get a ring!

Cheers.

http://astropixels.com/galaxies/M31-01.html

Kaler’s stars website confirms Nu Andromedae as the most probable star youre thinking of too see :

http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/and-t.html

Plus click on my name for Jim Kaler’s page on it. Turns out to be a B5 dwarf and F8 main sequence type close binary star located about 700 light years away.

Although I’m afraid I’ve messed up on the location of Upsilon Andromedae confusing it with Mu Andromedae instead as Upsilon Andromedae turns out to be further down the “Horses hind leg” / chained damsel in distress. See :

http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/upsand.html

For info and photographic finderchart for that ‘un.
D’oh! My apologies.