Most detailed map of the universe ever made
Astronomers have released the largest ever colour image of the whole sky, stitched together from seven million images each made of 125 million pixels.
Data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has already helped identify and describe nearly half a billion stars and galaxies.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12170904
Also see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12167011
Most detailed map of the universe ever made,
The actual map is described, accurately, as the “Sloan Digital Sky Survey”.
But to describe this as a “Map of the Universe” is surely debatable.
It is in effect a series of cross-sectional maps of the universe,
at different DISTANCES and different TIMES, because that is all we can see.
What the universe might be like at other distances and times can only be conjectured.
Indeed it is questionable whether it makes any sense to talk about “the universe”
as if it was something that exists here and now. For example the Andromeda Galaxy
we see as it was 200 million years ago, what it is like “now” – who knows?
Does the question, what is it like now, even make sense? We can surely never know.
For 200 million read 2.2 million! I just checked in a reference book rather than my faulty memory.