Jan 21, 2025 19:00:00

NASA releases super-large panoramic photo of the Andromeda Galaxy taken over 10 years, with a threatening pixel count of about 410 million

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released a 42208 x 9870 pixel panoramic photo created by stitching together 600 images of

the Andromeda Galaxy that it has taken over 10 years using the Hubble Space Telescope .

Hubble M31 PHAT+PHAST Mosaic | HubbleSite
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2025/005/01JGY8JKWBHBWJ71V3QQTKM382

2.5 Billion Pixel Image of Galaxy Shot by Hubble - YouTube


417-Megapixel Andromeda Galaxy Panorama Took Over a Decade to Make | PetaPixel
https://petapixel.com/2025/01/16/417-megapixel-andromeda-galaxy-panorama-took-over-a-decade-to-make/

Below is a panoramic photo of the Andromeda Galaxy released by NASA. However, the resolution of the original image is very large, at 42208 x 9870 pixels (748.98 MB).

The first panoramic photographs of the Andromeda Galaxy using the Hubble Space Telescope began with

the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury program in 2012. This program used the Advanced Camera for Surveying Observations and the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope to capture images of near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths emitted from the northern half of the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury program was then carried out in 2023, capturing images of the southern half of the Andromeda Galaxy. More than 600 images of the Andromeda Galaxy were taken in the two programs, and the panoramic photo created by stitching together these images captured approximately 200 million stars.

However, the Andromeda galaxy is thought to contain an estimated one trillion stars, and NASA says, 'The stellar brightness captured in this panoramic image is only a small fraction of the entire Andromeda galaxy.'

NASA also said, 'Because the Andromeda Galaxy is

a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way, studying Andromeda can help us understand the structure and evolution of the Milky Way.'

'The Hubble Space Telescope is giving us an incredibly detailed look at what's going on throughout the Milky Way's disk,' said Benjamin Williams of the University of Washington. 'Studying Andromeda in detail will help us piece together the history of past mergers and interactions between galaxies.'

According to overseas media PetaPixel, if the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which NASA is developing with the aim of launching in the mid-2020s, is used, it will be possible to capture images equivalent to 100 images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in a single shot. It is said that.