Three-Way View of Milky Way:  NASA
Celebrating the four centuries of astronomical advancement since Galileo took his first telescopic view of the heavens, NASA today unveiled this unique view of the heart of our galaxy as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The 6-foot-by-3-foot prints were unveiled at more than 150 planetariums, museums, libraries, and centers of learning across the land, and man, is it ever a view.

The composite image was stitched together from three separate images captured by some of astronomy's most advanced tools: a near-infrared image from Hubble, an infrared image from Spitzer and an X-ray view from the Chandra Observatory. Each of these images is itself a composite, a mosaic of sweeping surveys of the galaxy beyond our solar system.

The result: a view of the Milky Way from an amazing perspective that includes vibrant regions of star birth, the supermassive black hole that hubs our galaxy and hazy blue X-ray light from super-hot gasses leftover from stellar explosions. Makes you feel kind of small, doesn't it?

Check out the annotated version below, or click here to download your own hi-res images.

The Center of the Milky Way, Annotated:  NASA

[Hubble]

9 Comments

Seems pretty dumb to have a key on the picture... considering that its a 2-d image of space? Or maybe its just me....

Seems pretty dumb to have a key on the picture... considering that its a 2-d image of space? Or maybe its just me....

Lol yeah and that little compass... which way is north? If I follow that line straight will I hit the north pole?

Where's Sha Ka Ri?

Ba dum psh.

What did you say?

Adam Schichtel
email me @ aschichtel15@franklinvillecsd.org

i think it's celestial north or something like that didn't pay much attenition in astronomy on that chapter

The sky is mapped according to the equitorial coordinate system - right ascension, declination. It functions by projecting the earth's poles, equator, and ecliptic onto the celestial sphere.



June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


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