Super Mario's 35th anniversary has gotten lots of fanfare by Nintendo, from the release of multiple LEGO sets to Mario-themed board games like Jenga and Monopoly. It has also been rumored that Nintendo is remastering 3D Mario games to celebrate, including Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and both Super Mario Galaxy games, as well as the Wii U's Super Mario 3D World.
Though no announcement has been made by Nintendo about whether these rumored remakes are happening, the older titles have been in the spotlight for other reasons. One self-proclaimed "Super Mario Galaxy expert" on Twitter who goes by Captain Byte, a glitch hunter and former member of Team Ari Games, pointed out Thursday that the 2007 game's logo uses a real image of the Andromeda Galaxy — namesake of BioWare's Mass Effect Andromeda, recently ported to Steam.
Andromeda, also called Messier 31 (or M31), is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, according to NASA. Captain Byte believes the swirling nebula faded into the word "Galaxy" in Super Mario Galaxy's logo is a horizontally-flipped 2005 image by physician and astronomer Robert Gendler taken with a 90-hour exposure. Some areas of the images do line up, so it clearly is the Andromeda Galaxy, but it's hard to say whether it uses Gendler's image specifically due to a few skewed star locations.
Mario Galaxy is not the only title in Nintendo's flagship series that has gotten attention for interesting discoveries in recent months. A leaked pre-launch version of Super Mario 64 revealed Luigi was planned to be in the game, validating 24 years of rumors and memes about "L being real" in the Nintendo 64 classic.
One reason why there has been so much fervor around the idea of Nintendo remaking its 3D Mario games for Switch is that they are beloved by many, and deserving of updates. Galaxy 1 and 2 are highly requested Super Mario remakes because of how creative and beautiful they were, suggesting there is a lot of potential to have them return on an HD console.
As long as those potential remakes are just rumors, fans will have to wait for the possibility to jump around in what is, apparently, the Andromeda Galaxy as their favorite portly plumber. In the meantime, Mario's 35th anniversary has led to special Switch controllers and other goodies for Nintendo fans to get their hands on.
Super Mario Galaxy is available on the Wii.
Sources: NASA, Team Ari Games