Hubble has recently released a new picture of the Andromeda galaxy, the next door neighbor to our home, the Milky Way. It shows a sweeping panoramic view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy, and is the sharpest image ever assembled by Hubble Space Telescope. The image will prove to be a great leap in the NASA space research program. Never before have the scientists been able to see the star cluster of a spiral galaxy in such a well-sampled and detailed way. Photographers will understand the extent of this breakthrough with this analogy. Imagine photographing a huge sea beach and resolving each grain of sand in the frame. Yes, you read that right. Sounds quite unbelievable, doesn’t it? The picture covers an expanse of about 61,000 light years in Andromeda, and the released photograph shows a cropped region of nearly 48,000 light years, with thousands of star clusters obvious to the eye. This will give the scientists an idea about the population of stars, with respect to the home galaxy. Here’s what it looks like:
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