2023-11-09 17:00:00
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The Milky Way is enormous in size. So much so that, yes all the stars of the Milky Way had names, it would take 4,000 years to say them all, assuming it was pronounced at a rate of one per second.
However, the Milky Way is represented in a single point on this map of 200,000 galaxies conceived with data collected over twenty years by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which offers an idea of its colossal scale. And, unlike other astronomical images that show a few scattered galaxies, the scale of this map, both in size and precision, is at another level.
Its creators were Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, along with Nikita Shtarkman, a former computer science student at the same university. An extraordinarily detailed map which allows the layman to assimilate astronomical data in a suggestive way that was previously only accessible to scientists, because the position and real colors of each of the galaxies are even shown. The further away the galaxy is, the redder it appears. The top of the map reveals the first flash of radiation emitted shortly after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
He interactive map It is available online, where it can also be downloaded for free in high quality.
Curiosities of the Milky Way
El Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Launched in Apache Point, New Mexico in 2000, SDSS is one of the most important multispectral astronomical imaging facilities in the world and which, among other tasks, is capable of carrying out redshift studies with its 2.5-meter wide-angle telescope. Advanced redshift studies at the facility use Hubble’s Law to calculate the distances of galaxies from Earth, with the additional help of angular position data.
The telescope uses the network scanning technique, which allows it to fixate and take advantage of the Earth’s rotation to record small portions of the sky. Every night, the telescope produces about 200 GBytes of data, which is published on the Internet and through the program NASA World Windand which have allowed us to conceive the map of the universe representing the greatest number of galaxies.
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