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May 31, 2012 01:00 PM (EDT)

News Release Number: STScI-2012-20

NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-on Collision with Andromeda Galaxy

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Technical facts about this news release:

About the Object
Object Name: Andromeda Galaxy, M31
Object Description: Starfield in M31
Position (J2000): R.A. 00h 42m 44s
Dec. +41° 16' 9"
Constellation: Andromeda
Distance: About 2.5 million light-years (770 kiloparsecs)
About the Data
Data Description:

The Hubble data were taken from the HST proposals 9453 and 10265, PI: T. Brown (STScI); and 11684, PI: R. van der Marel (STScI).

The science team comprises: R. van der Marel, S.T. Sohn, J. Anderson, and T. Brown (STScI), M. Fardal (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), G. Besla (Columbia University), R. Beaton (University of Virginia), P. Guhathakurta (UCO/Lick Observatory/UCSC), and T.J. Cox (Carnegie Observatories).
Instrument: ACS/WFC and WFC3/UVIS
Exposure Date(s): December 2002 and January 2005; January 2010 and August 2010
Filters: ACS/WFC: F606W (V) and F814W (I)
WFC3/UVIS: F606W (V)
About the Release
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. van der Marel (STScI)
Release Date: May 31, 2012
Color: This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS instrument on HST. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are:
ACS/WFC: F606W (V) blue
ACS/WFC: F814W (I) red
M31 Locator Map: IAU and Sky & Telescope Magazine [R. Sinnott and R. Fienberg] via Wikipedia Commons
Orientation/Scale:
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