"Photographing Andromeda was a herculean task because the galaxy is a much bigger target on the sky than the galaxies Hubble routinely observes, which are often billions of light-

Messier 31 is located 2.5 million light-years away from Earth and was a much bigger target in the sky than the galaxies Hubble routinely observes.

In the years following the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have tallied over 1 trillion galaxies in the universe. But only one galaxy stands out as the most important nearby stellar island to our Milky Way—the magnificent Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31).