Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos!Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe isfeatured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.2025 February 21
Hubble's Andromeda Galaxy Mosaic Image Credit: NASA, ESA, HubbleMission,B. F. Williams (Univ Washington),Z. Chen (Univ Washington),L. C. Johnson (Northwestern),Processing; Joseph DePasquale(STScI) Explanation: The largest photomosaicever assembled from Hubble Space Telescopeimage data is a panoramic view of our neighboring spiralAndromeda Galaxy.With 600 overlapping frames assembled from observations madefrom July 2010 to December 2022, the fullHubble Andromeda Galaxy mosaicspans almost six full moons acrossplanet Earth's sky.A cropped version shown above isnearly two full moons across and partially covers Andromeda's coreand inner spiral arms.Also known as M31, theAndromeda Galaxy is2.5 million light-years away.That makes it the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way.Our perspective on the spiral Milky Way isanchored to the view from thelocation of the Sun,a star found within the Milky Way's galactic disk.But Hubble's magnificent Andromeda mosaic offers an expansiveview of a large spiral galaxy from the outside looking in.Hubble's comprehensive,detaileddata setextendingacross the Andromeda Galaxywill allow astronomers to make anunprecedented holistic exploration of themysteries of spiral galaxy structure and evolution. Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend <| Archive| Submissions | Index| Search| Calendar| RSS| Education| About APOD| Discuss| > Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff(MTU) &Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)NASA Official: Amber StraughnSpecific rights apply.NASA WebPrivacy Policy and Important NoticesA service of:ASD atNASA /GSFC, NASA ScienceActivation& Michigan Tech. U.
