Most detailed view yet of Milky Way center
Image Credit: NASA
Barbara Whitney: You know, astronomy is not just numbers, and facts and figures. It’s beautiful.
You’re listening to Barbara Whitney of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Barbara Whitney: And I think this poster that we’ve created is a combination of art and science. And the art I guess was provided to us by the universe, and maybe the color display that we’ve provided. So I guess we can take a little credit for that.
Whitney is talking about a new mosaic image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy – made by piecing together over 800,000 separate images. The center of our galaxy is a dusty place. Until now, that dust has clouded astronomers view in optical light. But the Spitzer Space Telescope, used in this project, sees through the dust in infrared light.
Barbara Whitney: Basically, at these wavelengths, we can see all the way through the galaxy for the first time. And so we’re just seeing all these things that we’ve never seen before.
Whitney said she’s excited about what she sees.
Barbara Whitney: You see just all the bubbling and all the action going on. The dynamics going on in the galaxy. It’s just clear that there’s so much going on.
Over 100 million stars have been catalogued with Spitzer data, and highlights include new glimpses of stars forming that are over a hundred times as massive as our sun.
Dust heated in regions where stars are forming emits infrared light that — unlike optical light — can cut through the inner galaxy and reach telescopes.
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I heard there was going to be an eclipse on August 1. To bad it wont be in the US. I hope i get to see one at least once in my life.
Is this poster available to the public?