Jenver

usatoday:

These “Black Marble” photos of Earth were just released by NASA and are composites of images taken this year. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.

“Nothing tells us more about the spread of humans across the Earth than city lights,” said Chris Elvidge, a NOAA scientist.

Pretty amazing. (And here’s a fantastic animation.)

(via lissak06)

shortformblog:

ikenbot:

Milky Way Shows 84 Million Stars in 9 Billion Pixels

Side Note: The two images shown above are mere crop outs from ESA’s recent hit: The 9 Billion Pixel Image of 84 Million Stars. These two focus on the bright center of the image for the purpose of highlighting what a peak at 84,000,000 stars looks like.

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have released a breathtaking new photograph showing the central area of our Milky Way galaxy. The photograph shows a whopping 84 million stars in an image measuring 108500×81500, which contains nearly 9 billion pixels.

It’s actually a composite of thousands of individual photographs shot with the observatory’s VISTA survey telescope, the same camera that captured the amazing 55-hour exposure. Three different infrared filters were used to capture the different details present in the final image.

The VISTA’s camera is sensitive to infrared light, which allows its vision to pierce through much of the space dust that blocks the view of ordinary optical telescope/camera systems.

source

Behold, the Milky Way, with the magnificent power of 9 billion pixels. The improvements in the imaging of our universe thanks to modern technology are ceaselessly breathtaking.

Awe.