They include the regular patterns of irrigated cropland, straight lines of roads and railways running across continents, reservoirs on river systems, and the cement rectangles of ports and seawalls along coastlines. To an observer in space, humanity’s footprints on the surface of the Earth are large and varied. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science.

Spitzer can spot faint stars on the outskirts of the galaxy.This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated. The images beamed down from the space telescope are also helping scientists understand more about star formation and the outer regions of the Milky Way. The platform also provides a second viewer that directs observers to special areas of interest in the large mosaic.īy analyzing the GLIMPSE data, scientists have found that the Milky Way is actually larger than previously expected, Spitzer officials said. You can explore the mosaic via Spitzer Space Telescope website.

Much of the Milky Way mosaic was created using data from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire project (called GLIMPSE), and the mosaic image is hosted by Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope visualization platform. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Wisconsin)

More than 2 million snapn infrared light over 10 years by the Spitzer Space Telescope, beginning in 2003 when the observatory launched.

This image,a snapshot of our Milky Way galaxy, part of a massive 360-degree mosaic of the entire galaxy primarily from the GLIMPSE360 project (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire).

360 view of earth from space