What can you learn from looking into the depths of space?
In an effort to find out true ages of stars in neighboring
Andromeda galaxy 's
halo , astronomers stared into the
galaxy giant with the new
Advanced Camera for Surveys through the
Hubble Space Telescope .
The resulting exposure of over three days,
shown above , is the deepest exposure in visible light ever taken,
although shorter in duration than the multi-wavelength effort toward the
Hubble Deep Field .
The final image illuminated not only
Andromeda (M31) but the distant universe.
Andromeda's halo stars turned out to be have a
wider range of ages than our
Milky Way 's halo stars,
likely indicating more encounters with
small neighboring galaxies .
Visible on the
above left is one of Andromeda's
globular star clusters , while literally
thousands of background galaxies are seen in the
distance universe ,
far beyond M31.
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