Hubble snaps whopping 665 million pixel image of Triangulum galaxy

Hubble Space Telescope has been clicking some breathtaking pictures of the cosmos for many years. The telescope, before losing its most advanced camera, captured some gorgeous views. A new composite made of several individual images gives us a glimpse of the nearby Triangulum galaxy in high detail.

The image size is so big that you might never want to load it unless you are surfing on high-speed internet. To make the image, Hubble clicked 54 different photos of the galaxy. Collectively, those images translate to a whopping 665 million pixels. The pixels were carefully aligned making the image size over 1.5GB.

If you are willing to download the image, it's available on Hubble's online portal. According to NASA and ESA, the image contains almost 25 million individually resolved stars.

The image description reads:

The borders of individual Hubble images trace the jagged edge of the mosaic, which spans 19,400 light-years across. Striking areas of star birth glow bright blue throughout the galaxy, particularly in beautiful nebulas of hot, ionized hydrogen gas like star-forming region NGC 604 in the upper left.

"My first impression on seeing the Hubble images was, wow, that really is a lot of star formation," said Julianne Dalcanton, project lead. "The star formation rate intensity is 10 times higher than the area surveyed in the Andromeda galaxy in 2015."

The Triangulum galaxy was picked up for this ultra-high-res image because of its placement. Its position allows us to the images in great detail.

But, unfortunately, the Hubble Space Telescope ran into some hardware issue, due to which its most technologically advanced camera had to be suspended. However, the telescope might still be able to continue its observations thanks to the other three active instruments, while the Wide Field Camera 3 anomaly is investigated, NASA said in a statement.