Once of science’s most famous instruments, the Hubble Space Telescope, has made history once again, as NASA researchers release the largest image ever generated by the space ‘scope.
Taking its aim at the Andromeda galaxy (M31) Hubble’s operators snapped over 411 high definition images composing a mosaic photo that spans some 40,000 light years and contains 100 million stars.
Given the incredible detail captured in the Andromeda portrait researchers will now have an unprecedented view of out neighboring galaxy, allowing in depth study of the spiraling home to millions of distant stars.
But why would researchers be interested in a galaxy that lies around 2.5 million light years from Earth?
Well, according to cosmologists and astronomers, spiral galaxies like the Milky Way and Andromeda are the Universe’s most prodigious stellar nurseries and can count themselves as being home to most stars.
Aside from the fact that this snap of Andromeda will allow cosmologists to view galactic evolution on a more granular scale, gathering data on M31 has another benefit.
In about 4 billion years Andromeda is scheduled to collide with the Milky Way intermingling the stars of our two galaxies and eventually forming a unified whole. Knowing the history, composition and, overtime, the evolution of a galaxy will give us a deeper understanding of how our Universe works. It might also unlock information that will be valuable in the future (especially if it’s a star-faring one!).
Source: NASA