The blobs in this false color image of Andromeda are actually x-ray sources. More than 100 such sources have been found in Andromeda; some lie in huge, ancient globular clusters containing as many as 1 million stars. Other sources include Andromeda’s central bulge, spiral arms, and several bright visible objects. X-ray light from Andromeda’s central bulge outshines our galaxy’s by a factor of four. And Andromeda’s center or nucleus emits a thousand times more x-ray luminosity than ours.
    Other peculiar x-ray entities reside in Andromeda’s bulge. One strange source pulsates in a 7-second cycle. About one third of the x-ray light in Andromeda’s bulge comes not from bloblike