US space agency NASA on Sunday shared the “largest ever” image of the Andromeda galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope. The photo was taken seven years ago and is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic neighbor. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the image shows the 48,000-light-year-long expanse of the Andromeda galaxy with more than 100 million stars. The panoramic image is split into three parts in the Instagram post, with the last part showing a band of blue stars with countless stars scattered throughout the image. Take a look below: “This image is divided into three images. The first image shows a bright spot coming from the lower left part of the Andromeda Galaxy with bands extending in all directions. The light recedes in the upper quarter of the image to mostly black and patches of blue space with countless stars. The second photo has light dissipating with streaks of purple and blue giving way to the blackness of space,” NASA wrote in the caption. Ever since it was shared, the image has captivated netizens. It has amassed more than a million likes. One user wrote: “It’s extremely beautiful.” Another said, “It’s amazing.” “Absolutely incredible,” commented the third. Also read | NASA finds ‘thermally stable’ craters on Moon that may pave the way for human expansion The space agency explained that because the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away, thousands of star clusters can be identified. NASA said our Milky Way and Andromeda are similar in size and shape. Specifically, the image was first released in 2015 and reposted yesterday. It shows an extent of 48,000 light-years of the galaxy in its “natural visible light color,” the agency said. “Because the galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth, it is a much larger target in the sky than the myriad galaxies typically photographed by Hubble that are billions of light-years away,” NASA explained.
