A Detailed Look at the Great Andromeda Galaxy
This sweeping celestial panorama is a multi-image Hubble mosaic of a portion of the great Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 (M31). Because the galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth, it is a much bigger target in the sky than the myriad galaxies Hubble routinely photographs that are billions of light-years away. M31 is, in fact, as large on the as sky as three adjacent full moons. As a result, 7,398 exposures over 411 individual pointings of Hubble were required to assemble this image.
Never before have astronomers been able to see individual stars — over 100 million here — inside an external spiral galaxy over such a large contiguous area. As a result, scientists can now begin to identify and study the distribution and evolution of differing stellar populations within the overall context of their locations within the galaxy at large.
Hubble traces densely packed stars extending from the innermost hub of the galaxy, seen at left. Moving out from this central galactic bulge, the panorama sweeps from the galaxy's central bulge across lanes of stars and dust to the sparser outer disk. Large groups of young blue stars indicate the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions. The stars bunch up in the blue ring-like feature toward the right side of the image. The dark silhouettes trace out complex dust structures. Underlying the entire galaxy is a smooth distribution of cooler red stars that trace Andromeda's evolution over billions of years.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/image/3476/news_release/2015-02
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
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A Detailed Look at the Great Andromeda Galaxy
This sweeping celestial panorama is a multi-image Hubble mosaic of a portion of the great Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 (M31). Because the galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth, it is a much bigger target in the sky than the myriad galaxies Hubble routinely photographs that are billions of light-years away. M31 is, in fact, as large on the as sky as three adjacent full moons. As a result, 7,398 exposures over 411 individual pointings of Hubble were required to assemble this image.
Never before have astronomers been able to see individual stars — over 100 million here — inside an external spiral galaxy over such a large contiguous area. As a result, scientists can now begin to identify and study the distribution and evolution of differing stellar populations within the overall context of their locations within the galaxy at large.
Hubble traces densely packed stars extending from the innermost hub of the galaxy, seen at left. Moving out from this central galactic bulge, the panorama sweeps from the galaxy's central bulge across lanes of stars and dust to the sparser outer disk. Large groups of young blue stars indicate the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions. The stars bunch up in the blue ring-like feature toward the right side of the image. The dark silhouettes trace out complex dust structures. Underlying the entire galaxy is a smooth distribution of cooler red stars that trace Andromeda's evolution over billions of years.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/image/3476/news_release/2015-02
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube