Hubble's largest ever image of Andromeda shows more than 100 MILLION stars in detail
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The sharpest and largest image ever taken of the Andromeda Galaxy - the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way - has been revealed by astronomers.
It shows more than 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy's pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years.
The sweeping view, which reveals one third of our galactic neighbour, also suggests that the galaxy may have been battered by a collision with another galaxy two billion years ago.
Click on the image to zoom in
Benjamin Williams of the University of Washington in Seattle told Nature that the image hints at an older wave of starbirth that had previously only been spotted in one area of Andromerda.
'No one would have guessed it was galaxy-wide', he said, suggesting there may have been a major collision in the galaxy's history.
The panoramic image has 1.5 billion pixels — meaning you would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image.
It traces the galaxy from its central galactic bulge on the left, where stars are densely packed together, across lanes of stars and dust to the sparser outskirts of its outer disc on the right.
The large groups of blue stars in the galaxy show the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions in the spiral arms, while the dark silhouettes of obscured regions 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.
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This image shows dust lanes, which are bands of interstellar dust, observed as a dark swath against the background of a brighter object. Other features, including stellar clusters, Milky Way stars, and star-forming regions are highlighted. The large groups of blue stars in the galaxy show the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions in the spiral arms
This image, captured by Hubble, is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy, otherwise known as M31. This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would 600 HD television screens to display the whole image
WHEN THE MILKY WAY AND ANDROMEDA COLLIDE: STUNNING SIMULATION REVEAL THE FATE OF OUR GALAXY
It's widely accepted than in 5 billion years our Milky Way will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy - but what will happen when it does?
In a new simulation revealed in September, scientists showed the intricate process that will take place, with the two central supermassive black holes merging into one. And the newly formed super-galaxy, dubbed 'Milkomeda', will also ultimately spell disaster for Earth as our planet is flung out into interstellar space.
The simulation was created by a number of institutions led by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (Icrar) in Western Australia. In the simulation it can be seen how the two galaxies will interact as they approach each other.
First, in a tentative meeting, they will 'swoop' past each other, possibly disrupting some of the orbits of stars in the arms of each spiral galaxy. Then, after separating, the two galaxies will accelerate towards each other again.
As Andromeda is larger than the Milky Way, with one trillion stars in the former compared to about 300 billion in the latter, it will technically be the one 'eating' our galaxy.
The Milky Way is also expected to 'eat' two nearby dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, at some point in the future.
The Andromeda Galaxy is a large spiral galaxy - a galaxy type home to the majority of the stars in the universe – and the clarity of these observations will help astronomers to interpret the light from the many galaxies that have a similar structure but lie much farther away.
Because the Andromeda Galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth it is a much bigger target on the sky than the galaxies Hubble routinely photographs that are billions of light-years away.
Its full diameter on the night sky is six times that of the full moon. To capture the large portion of the galaxy seen here — over 40 000 light-years across — Hubble took 411 images which have been assembled into a mosaic image.
This panorama is the product of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (Phat) programme.
Images were obtained from viewing the galaxy in near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard Hubble.
This view shows the galaxy in its natural visible-light colour as photographed in red and blue filters.
This wide-field view shows the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) along with its companions M32 (below centre) and NGC 205 (upper right). The extend of the new PHAT survey of Andromeda using the Hubble Space Telescope is shown by the irregularly shaped region and the main image presented here by the rectangle within it
A compass image of Andromeda showing its position in the sky. The large box is the area that Hubble imaged. Because the Andromeda Galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth it is a much bigger target on the sky than the galaxies Hubble routinely photographs
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