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A century back, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble initially developed that this so-called ‘spiral nebula’ was around 2.5 million light years far from our Milky Way Galaxy. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has actually achieved the most extensive study of the Andromeda galaxy. It took more than 10 years to gather information for this vibrant picture, which records the radiance of 200 million stars, and was produced from more than 600 photos.
This the biggest photomosaic ever put together from Hubble observations. It is a scenic view of the surrounding Andromeda galaxy, situated 2.5 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA/ ESA/ B. Williams, University of Washington.
The Andromeda galaxy(Messier 31), which lies 2.5 million light-years away, is the Milky Way’s nearby big galactic next-door neighbor.
Hubble’s sharp imaging abilities can solve more than 200 million stars in the galaxy, finding just stars brighter than our Sun. They appear like grains of sand throughout the beach. That’s simply the idea of the iceberg.
Andromeda’s overall population is approximated to be one trillion stars, with numerous less enormous stars falling listed below Hubble’s level of sensitivity limitation.
“Photographing Andromeda was a burden due to the fact that the galaxy is a much larger target on the sky than the galaxies Hubble regularly observes, which are frequently billions of light-years away,” stated University of Washington astronomer Zhuo Chen and associates.
“The complete mosaic was performed under 2 Hubble observing programs. In overall it needed over 1,000 Hubble orbits, covering more than a years.”
“This panorama began with the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program about a years earlier.”
The Andromeda galaxy is seen practically edge-on, slanted by 77 degrees relative to Earth’s view; intriguing areas consist of:(a)clusters of brilliant blue stars embedded within the galaxy, background galaxies seen much further away, and photo-bombing by a couple brilliant foreground stars that are in fact inside our Milky Way; (b) NGC 206 is the most noticeable star cloud in Andromeda; (c) a young cluster of blue newborn stars; (d) the satellite galaxy M32, that might be the recurring core of a galaxy that when hit the Andromeda galaxy; (e) dark dust lanes throughout myriad stars. Image credit: NASA/ ESA/ B. Williams, University of Washington.
“Images were gotten at near-ultraviolet, noticeable, and near-infrared wavelengths utilizing Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to picture the northern half of Andromeda.”
“This program was followed up by the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST), which included pictures of around 100 million stars in the southern half of Andromeda.”
“This area is structurally distinct and more conscious the galaxy’s merger history than the northern disk mapped by the PHAT study.”
“The combined programs jointly cover the whole disk of Andromeda, which is seen nearly edge-on– slanted by 77 degrees relative to Earth’s view.”
“The galaxy is so big that the mosaic is put together from around 600 different field of visions.”
The outcomes are explained in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal
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Zhuo Chen et al2025. PHAST. The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury. I. Ultraviolet and Optical Photometry of over 90 Million Stars in M31. ApJ 979, 35; doi: 10.3847/ 1538-4357/ ad7e2b
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