Hubble’s High-Definition View of the Andromeda Galaxy

This is a little fragment of the largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, a sweeping view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disk. It’s like photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand. And, there are lots of stars in this sweeping view — over 100 million, with some of them in thousands of star clusters seen embedded in the disk. Never before have astronomers been able to see individual stars over a major portion of an external spiral galaxy. 

NASA/ESA

Hubble M31 PHAT Mosaic

The largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, this sweeping bird's-eye view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic next-door neighbor. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy's pancake-shaped disk. It's like photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand. And, there are lots of stars in this sweeping view – over 100 million, with some of them in thousands of star clusters seen embedded in the disk.

NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler

Andromeda and the Milky Way: frame by frame simulation of a titanic collision

NASA astronomers announced they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, Sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.

A new spectacular image of the Andromeda galaxy in ultraviolet light

Hot stars burn brightly in this new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, showing the ultraviolet side of a familiar face.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech