Caption

This video opens with the largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble snapshots. This stunning mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. The camera zooms into the central portion of the galaxy, resolving a sea of myriad older stars. The camera pans along the galaxy's vast disk which is over 200,000 light-years across. The view is etched with dark dust clouds. The stellar population looks bluer as we move toward the galaxy's outer rim, rich in bright blue star clusters. A spindle-shaped background galaxy briefly comes into view.