A new multi-telescope image has revealed the beauty of the center of the Milky Way across the electromagnetic spectrum.
The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes teamed up with the Chandra X-ray Observatory to provide a glimpse of our galaxy that shows far more than our human eyes can see.
The effort allows a tremendous amount of data to be grasped in one glorious, mind-blowing space photo. Spitzer investigated the infrared light (red in the final image) emanating from the region, which largely comes from glowing dust clouds created by stellar radiation and wind. Chandra captured the X-rays (blue and violet in the final image) emanating from stellar explosions and the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. And the Hubble looked at the near infrared light closest to the visible part of the spectrum (yellow in the final image) to reveal hundreds of thousands of stars.
If you want to know more about how amazing photos like this are made by amateur and professional astronomers alike, check out our story on the making of a mind-blowing space photo.
Image: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, STScI
See Also:
- Brilliant 360-Degree Panorama of the Milky Way
- Milky Way 50 Percent Larger, Astronomers Discover
- Map of Science Looks Like Milky Way
- Astronomers Make 5-Gigapixel Image of Milky Way
- Rogue Black Holes Could Careen Across Milky Way
- Starry Cannonball Shooting out Of Milky Way at 3 Million Mph
- Milky Way Has Two Starry Halos, Spinning Separately
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
