See a Stunning New View of the Milky Way
Astronomers stitched together more than 700 maps to create the most detailed image ever of our galaxy from the Southern Hemisphere.
This stunning image shows the full view of the Milky Way from the Southern Hemisphere.
Scientists stitched together the enormous image from more than 700 observations by the APEX telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert. It reveals finer details of the galaxy than seen in earlier images, including most of the places where new stars are born—such as the mysterious Galactic Center—and cold regions where dust and gas hover mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero.
The image is also the first to image our galaxy’s southern half in sub-millimeter wavelengths—light between infrared and radio waves. By combining views using different wavelengths of light, scientists add extra layers of detail. Here, the new telescope data shows up in red against an
