14 DAY TRIAL // This Wednesday, a team of scientists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany unveiled a new portrait of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The researchers say they put together this view of our cosmic neighborhood themselves, with the help of telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
The team stared at the sky for five years straight, looking for stars and other celestial bodies not yet documented. They discovered about 50,000 previously unknown orbs, and since this part of their work is far from over, they say they expect to locate many more in the years to come.
Having collected dozens of images as part of this investigation, the researchers joined them to create just one comprehensive view of the Milky Way. It took them a few weeks, but they eventually got the job done. As it turns out, the final image released this Wednesday was well worth the wait.
Introducing the largest astronomical image to date
This latest portrait of the Milky Way compiled by Ruhr-Universität Bochum astronomers comprises a grand total of 46 billion pixels. It can be viewed with the help of an online tool and is said to be the absolute largest astronomical image of all times.
The online tool first shows a wide view of the galaxy. Then, space enthusiasts can zoom in and have a closer look at the stars featured in it. The Milky Way is estimated to hold about 400 billion stars of various sizes, so, yes, there are a whole lot of bright spots in this image.
In fact, at first glance, the image can prove disconcerting. Worry not though, as the Ruhr-Universität Bochum made it so that the online tool can be used to search for especially popular stars.
“An input window, which provides the position of the displayed image section, can be used to search for specific objects. If the user types in 'Eta Carinae', for example, the tool moves to the respective star; the search term 'M8' leads to the lagoon nebula,” the team explain.
If you have some time to spare and feel like exploring our home galaxy, here's the team's staggeringly complex view of the Milky Way.
