Swift's UV portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy

  • Released Wednesday, September 16, 2009
View full credits

NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of the neighboring spiral galaxy M31. Also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 is the largest and closest such galaxy to our own. It's more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers. The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours. Some 20,000 ultraviolet sources are visible in the image, including M32, a small galaxy in orbit around M31. Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle in the disk beyond the galaxy's smooth, redder central bulge. Star clusters are especially plentiful along a ring about 150,000 light-years across.

"A Swift Tour of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)" short film.

For complete transcript, click here.

High resolution layered Photoshop TIFF containing both UV and Optical image layers.

High resolution layered Photoshop TIFF containing both UV and Optical image layers.

High resolution still of the Andromeda Galaxy as seen by the Swift satellite in UV light.

High resolution still of the Andromeda Galaxy as seen by the Swift satellite in UV light.

High resolution still of the Andromeda Galaxy in optical light.

High resolution still of the Andromeda Galaxy in optical light.

High resolution wide angle image of the Andromeda Galaxy in optical light.

High resolution wide angle image of the Andromeda Galaxy in optical light.

For More Information

See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/uv_andromeda.html

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
Swift image: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP) Optical image: Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF

This page was originally published on Wednesday, September 16, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • A Swift Tour of M31 (ID: 2009079)
    Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 4:00AM

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.