By Maegan Carroll
The Andromeda galaxy, scientifically known as M31, is the closest galaxy to our home in the Milky Way. Recently NASA has released a photograph of Andromeda that will change the study of galaxies due to its clarity and sharpness.
M31 PHAT Mosaic – Cropped Image of Andromeda Galaxy
With the use of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers were able to create an image that covers a span of Andromeda measuring some 61,000 light-years-long. The diameter that Andromeda covers in the night sky, as viewed from Earth, is equivalent to six times the area of the size the full Moon appears to be seen from the human eye. With Andromeda’s distance of two million light years away, and such a large area to cover, capturing such a clear image may seem difficult. However, this particular photo is the clearest Hubble has ever produced, and over 100 million individual stars are visible in the image.
The size of the image is massive, containing 1.5 billion pixels, a file size of 4.5 gigabytes, and dimensions of 69536 x 22230 pixels.
M31 PHAT Mosaic – Uncropped Diagram
The image was not actually taken with one shot, but is a composite of 411 different exposures that were taken between July 2010 and October 2013. The total time it took to expose the shots was 394 hours, which is equivalent to16.1 days.
Given the title “M31 PHAT Mosaic”, the image is a result of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury program.
Hubble has created a zoom tool that helps viewers experience the vastness of the mosaic and provide them with a new perspective.
(For zoom tool visit: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/)
Although the image was complete in 2013, it was not released until January 5, 2015, where it was presented at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Due to the clarity of this image of Andromeda, a new benchmark has been made in the study of spiral galaxies, which will allow astronomers’ observances to be more precise.
The Hubble Space Telescope is located in NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is an international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Operations of Hubble are conducted by The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Credit for constructing the photo can be given to NASA, ESA, the PHAT team, astrophotographer R. Gendler, and J. Dalcanton, B. F. Williams, and L C. Johnson from the University of Washington, USA.
For more information, videos, and downloads of the PHAT Mosaic, visit: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/02/image/
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