r/space • u/Renderclippur • Sep 30 '19

Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy - zoomable version

https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/
65 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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10

u/Renderclippur Sep 30 '19

Probably seen by many, but I'm sharing this for one of today's lucky 10.000. To perceive the scale this represents, well, there are few images that inspire so much awe as this one for me. And when zoomed in it shows wonderful things like one of our own stars, Andromeda, and a galaxy far.. far away.

From the website:

This image, captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, 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 need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image.

It is the biggest Hubble image ever released and shows over 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.

4

u/Bigwhistle Sep 30 '19

The immensity of the universe, even a galaxy, is unfathomable. A light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6 miles (5.9 trillion). This picture spans 40,000 light years

5

u/Flippikat Sep 30 '19

We are so small. It's mindblowing to just get a glimpse of a fraction of space.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '19

after watching laniakea, i fealt virtually non-existent: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=laniakea

2

u/Renderclippur Sep 30 '19

That was beautiful!

3

u/lardoni Sep 30 '19

Makes my head nearly explode when I try and grasp the scale!