The Milky Way has fascinated humanity for centuries, with its countless stars and cosmic dust clouds. The core of the Milky Way, which is home to this cosmic marvel, appears as a small patch to the naked eye. However, thanks to the VISTA telescope, the European Space Agency has captured one of the most detailed images of the Milky Way ever taken, enabling astronomers to catalog an astounding 84 million stars.
This breathtaking image gives us a glimpse into the vast expanse of the Milky Way galaxy. The image is a thumbnail of the original image, which has a resolution of 108,500 by 81,500 pixels, or 9 gigapixels, and occupies 24.6 gigabytes. The image is simply too large to display at full quality and is best viewed by zooming in.
The VISTA telescope, one of the world’s largest visible and near-infrared telescopes, captured hundreds of photographs of the sky, which were assembled into a 9 gigapixel mosaic. The telescope’s remarkable infrared camera enabled it to peek past the dust clouds that block the view of other telescopes, resulting in a crystal-clear image.
This image enables us to appreciate our cosmic home even more. The Milky Way galaxy is incredibly distinctive and gorgeous, and this photograph has enabled scientists and astronomers to identify several cosmic objects worthy of future study.
The Milky Way is part of a supermassive structure comprised of over 800 galaxies located approximately one billion million light years away. Our galaxy is part of an intergalactic highway, dubbed Laniakea, that spans approximately 500 million light years and contains approximately 100,000,000,000,000,000 Suns.
The image allowed researchers to identify 84 million stars within the Milky Way. According to astronomers, our Milky Way galaxy has approximately 400 billion stars. This astronomical number helps us to comprehend the vastness of the universe and the limitless possibilities that exist beyond our planet.
For instance, did you know that astronomers estimate there are approximately 500 billion galaxies in the known universe? This means there are approximately 50 quadrillion billion quadrillion billion (5×10^22) habitable planets. It is fascinating to ponder the potential of the universe and the possibility of other intelligent life forms in it.
The VISTA telescope has opened our eyes to the limitless possibilities that exist beyond our planet, and it has given us a new perspective of our cosmic home. This image of the Milky Way has shown us just how small we are in the grand scheme of things and how much there is yet to discover in the universe.
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