Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy

Stsci_2015-02b_1024

stsci_2015-02b January 5th, 2015

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

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. This ambitious photographic cartography of the Andromeda galaxy represents a new benchmark for precision studies of large spiral galaxies that dominate the universe's population of over 100 billion galaxies. Never before have astronomers been able to see individual stars inside an external spiral galaxy over such a large contiguous area. Most of the stars in the universe live inside such majestic star cities, and this is the first data that reveal populations of stars in context to their home galaxy. 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. 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. This means that the Hubble survey is assembled together into a mosaic image using 7,398 exposures taken over 411 individual pointings. The panorama is the product of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program. Images were obtained from viewing the galaxy in near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard Hubble. This cropped view shows a 48,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy in its natural visible-light color, as photographed with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in red and blue filters July 2010 through October 2013.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2015/news-2015-02

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/

Image Details Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Andromeda Galaxy M 31 Messier 31
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Stsci_2015-02b_128
 

Position Details Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 0h 44m 37.0s
DEC = 41° 35’ 33.8”
Orientation
North is 123.5° CW
Field of View
58.0 x 18.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Andromeda

Color Mapping Details Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (b) 475.0 nm
Yellow Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Blue
Yellow
Stsci_2015-02b_1280
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ID
2015-02b
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
Andromeda Galaxy, M 31, Messier 31
Credits
NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
Release Date
2015-01-05T00:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2015/news-2015-02
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Good
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble, Hubble
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Blue, Yellow
Band
Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
b, I
Central Wavelength
475, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
Reference Value
11.1541387615, 41.5927245494
Reference Dimension
69536.0, 22230.0
Reference Pixel
34768.0, 11115.0
Scale
-1.38979163624e-05, 1.38979163624e-05
Rotation
-123.5474802
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
STScI
URL
http://hubblesite.org
Name
Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach
Email
outreach@stsci.edu
Telephone
410-338-4444
Address
3700 San Martin Drive
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
USA
Rights
http://hubblesite.org/copyright/
Publisher
STScI
Publisher ID
stsci
Resource ID
STSCI-H-p1502b-f-26004x9289.tif
Metadata Date
2022-07-06T00:00:00
Metadata Version
1.2
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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