NASA's Swift satellite has captured the best view of a neighboring spiral galaxy that we've seen yet.
Between May and July of last year, Swift took 330 ultraviolet images of our closest spiral neighbor, the galaxy M31 in the constellation Andromeda. Compiling all 85 gigabytes of image data resulted in the highest-resolution ultraviolet picture of a galaxy that scientists have ever had, and researchers say the new mosaic will give them a closer look at how stars are born in the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light-years away.
"Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters," said NASA scientist Stefan Immler in a press release. "This will let us study M31's star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible."
In this image, Andromeda's central bulge appears smooth and reddish because it contains older, cooler stars. Most new stars, which sparkle bright blue in the photo, are born in the galaxy's spiral arm where there's plenty of gas and dust necessary for star formation.
See a high-resolution version of this image and a flyby video.
Image: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
See Also:
- Hubble Is Back! With New Stunning Images
- Dec. 30, 1924: Hubble Annnounces Andromeda Is a Galaxy
- Brilliant 360-Degree Panorama of the Milky Way
- Star Factory Shows Off Three Kinds of Nebulae
- X-Ray Telescope's First 10 Years of Awesome Images
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