It’s no secret that Apple lives in its own little world. In fact, it prides itself on its closed ecosystem where it can control as much of its products as possible and just filter out everything else that it doesn’t like. Such an approach can lead to a very cohesive, but directed, user experience, which isn’t always a bad thing. Most would say, however, that Apple would be taking it too far if it started redrawn maps. Oh, but Apple has redrawn a map – a map of the stars.

One of the new wallpapers included in Mac OS 10.7 Lion features an image of the Andromeda galaxy with a few alterations. David Kaplan, assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, sent Boing Boing the above gif image illustrating the differences between Apple’s wallpaper and real life.

He wrote in:

Apple has once again altered the Universe according to their whim. They moved/removed many stars, and got rid of a whole galaxy. This is M110, which is one of M31′s [Andromeda's] satellites. The other big satellite, M32, is still there.

Interestingly, the M110 is also the model name for the original Samsung Galaxy.