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Gigapixels of Andromeda


dlonewolf85

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NASA has released the largest and the sharpest photograph ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to ours that contains an estimated 1 trillion stars. The new image weighs in at 1.5 Giga-pixels (i.e. 1.5 billion pixels); it’s so big that you would need 600 HD televisions to display the entire digital photo!! Captured by the Hubble telescope, the image reportedly shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters. And keep in mind that this is just a 40,000 light year section of the whole spiral galaxy...

This high resolution video explores the largest Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, which displays a portion of the Andromeda galaxy. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disk. Over 100 million stars can be seen in this image.

Here's the link, I hope that you enjoy watching it as much as I did... :)

https://youtu.be/udAL48P5NJU

P.S. - Although I am posting this in the 'Science and Space' section of the forums, watching this 3 minute clip almost felt like having a mild psychedelic experience to me... and personally I feel it is such a humbling experience to see that we are but so small and seemingly insignificant, but at the same time, each of us is made of the exact same stuff that make the stars! (Our) existence in this universe can indeed be viewed as kind of a spiritual thing and so very fantastic, and although each of us tends to live in our own separate worlds, yet all of us inseparable on so many levels and we're all part of something much greater and grander than all of us combined...

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As a lonely boy I used to look up to the stars and wonder if there was another lonely boy on one of those stars looking down on me. I knew he would understand and be my only true friend.

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That's a loooonnnng way to go for a friend.

The night sky must look amazing in Arizona! Lots of friends up there! :)

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As a lonely boy I used to look up to the stars and wonder if there was another lonely boy on one of those stars looking down on me. I knew he would understand and be my only true friend.

That's a beautiful thought and I can relate to it.... Like you, I have often been much fascinated by the night-sky (ever since I was a young boy), and I have always felt (or imagined?) some kind of a connection with something that might be 'up there'. Feeling a lack of meaningful connection in our life is often such an unpleasant experience, and as human beings, it is our very nature to seek comfort - sometimes we look up to the stars, and sometimes we tend to look within, or we simply find ways to keep ourselves distracted, only just to feel better. Mankind has always been like that, IMO. Maybe there's something in our 'souls', or in our psyches, or perhaps in our DNA? I am not sure, but I feel it is perfectly natural for us to feel like that, and that perhaps it's also a good thing... :)

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