Number 138 (Story #2), July 26, 1993 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY HAS A DOUBLE NUCLEUS . Hubble Space Telescope images show that Andromeda seems to have a small bright nucleus at the true galactic center and another, brighter, nucleus about 5 light years away. Double-nucleus galaxies have been seen before, but the usual explanation for this---a messy merger of two separate galaxies---does not seem appropriate for Andromeda, which has often served as a textbook example of spiral galaxy structure. Two Hubble scientists, Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories and Sandra Faber of UC Santa Cruz, offer two hypotheses: a lone nucleus may appear as two if it is partially obscured by dust; or one of the two nuclei may be the remnant of a smaller galaxy cannibalized by a much larger galaxy. (The New York Times, 20 July 1993.)