Astronomy Picture of the Day 7-19-02

NASA ^ | 7-19-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 July 19

Counting Stars in the Infrared Sky
Credit: J. Carpenter, M. Skrutskie, R. Hurt, 2MASS Project, NSF, NASA

Explanation: The bulging center of our Milky Way Galaxy, dark cosmic clouds, the thin galactic plane, and even nearby galaxies are easy to spot in this sky view. But each pixel in the digital image is actually based on star counts alone -- as derived from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) database. In 2001, the 2MASS project completed a ground-based survey of the entire sky and cataloged upwards of 250 million stars. Their full all-sky picture assigns a brightness and color to individual pixels based on corresponding star counts in each of the survey's three near-infrared bands. In this cropped image, the star-packed galactic center is toward the upper left, with the bright plane of our Galaxy running horizontally through it. Dense regions of interstellar dust clouds, still opaque to penetrating near-infrared light, appear dark by reducing the 2MASS star counts. Our fuzzy neighboring galaxies, the large and small Magellanic Clouds, are at the lower right, while scattered single bright spots correspond to the intense concentrations of stars in the Milky Way's large globular star clusters.

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Fun Fact:

That faint vertical "finger" of light by the lower left part of the galactic bulge?
It's the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, a satellite galaxy which is merging with the Milky Way.

This image is not a direct image but is compiled from star counts in the 2MASS point source database.

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[petuniasevan]

APOD PING!

[MeekOneGOP]

Beautiful. It's nice living on the edge........of the Milky Way Galaxy!

[2Trievers]

I am in awe. &;-)

The galactic equator with constellation outlines ...

[foolish-one]

Thanks for the image and the lesson!

Carry on, professor!!!

[RightWhale]

It was a good idea to read the explanation of the data. The presentation is standard in demographic statistics. They are presenting the data in a standard cartographic format, although the appearance of some color might throw someone off the trail.

[headsonpikes]

Startlingly beautiful!

Looks like a real view of a spiral galaxy--impressive technology, eh?!

[MozartLover]

bump

[Search4Truth]

I love these pictures. When I see them I can not help but to think of God. It reminds me of how insignificant we are, but then also so special. They are a reality check on one's humility.

Please add me to your ping list?

Thanks, S4T.

[sistergoldenhair]

Wonderful.

[Search4Truth]

I found the subscription button. LOL.

[BossyRoofer]

You make understanding the galaxy a lot of fun!

[ramdalesh]

the small bulge under the stellargalactic ring, Named that galaxy a grandalpha\\google, or a cartographic disinformation schematic, could've potentially contain more than 700AMASS anti-material compotent.

In a shifting cosmos there r stranger things...

[ramdalesh]

YJesh really. uh, this girl JenB, does she like-want me or something?