Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Photo: Mosaic of the Galactic Center



This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years.

This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core, revealing details in objects as small as 20 times the size of our own solar system. The picture measures 300×115 light-years and required 144 Hubble orbits to make 2,304 science exposures. It was taken between Feb. 22 and Jun. 5, 2008.

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