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Against a dark blue-back background of space, dotted with pinpoints of cyan light, a bright spiral is at center, tilted from the upper left to lower right. The spiral appears surrounded by a thin, blue-green haze, with bring rings of gold turning to greenish toward the center point, which appears as a glowing, bright-white ball, larger and brighter than any other point of light in the image.

WISE Studies Our Neighbor Andromeda

The immense Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or simply M31, is captured in this image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). WISE used all four of its infrared detectors to capture this picture: 3.4- and 4.6-micron light appears blue in this image; 12-micron light is green; and 22-micron light is red. Blue highlights mature stars, while yellow and red show dust heated by massive newborn stars.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
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Image CreditNASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
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