“This image, captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy — otherwise known as M31.This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image.”
via Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy | ESA/Hubble.
I had to download the 4.3 GB file. For science.
The 21st century has brought us many great wonders… like new ways for phone companies to charge outrageous prices while locking us into contracts (at least here in the US):
Scientist Says Texting is More Expensive Than Downloading From Hubble | Universe Today: “One space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Nigel Bannister from the University of Leicester looked at the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble and compared it with the cost of sending a text. His calculations? ‘The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.'”
I guess this adds new fodder for the people who claim that Twitter is a huge waste of time and money.
Hopefully, the invisible hand of the free market will one day deliver us from our overcharging mobile overlords.