Scientists Release Largest 3D Map of Universe Ever

Transcript by (www.newsy.com) BY CHARLIE MCKEAGUE You’re watching multisource science news analysis from Newsy A map of the universe. More than one trillion pixels and 12 years in the making. Scientists released the largest-ever digital image of the universe. The image is so large that it would take 500000 high definition televisions to display the entire thing. (Video Flickr) The project, called “The Sloan Digital Sky Survey” is giving scientists all over the world a chance digitally fly through the universe and explore. On the BBC one scientist explains the project’s impact. “There is so much in this picture, it is so detailed. And the telescope is robotic, it’s automatic, so people haven’t actually gone into the image and looked at everything that is in there. … The data is actually available online so anybody, any member of the public, any scientist can look on it for themselves. You can hone in on parts of the image and look at galaxies, stars, whatever you want.” A science and tech contributor for MSNBC gives some more background — and highlights one thing scientists plan to use the colossal image for. “The Sloan Survey says the image covers about 1/3 of the night sky, and shows at least one million galaxies. The group is also measuring the distance between earth and individual galaxies, based on the image to create a 3D map of the universe.” The photos were captured using a 138 megapixel imaging detector mounted on the back of a telescope stationed in New Mexico …

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