Slashdot Mirror
Spitzer's 5-Gigapixel Milky Way
James Harold writes "Today NASA unveiled a new infrared mosaic of our galaxy. The result of over 800,000 individual images collected by the Spitzer Space Telescope, it is the largest, highest-resolution, and most sensitive infrared picture ever taken of the Milky Way (and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future). Because Spitzer sees in infrared, it penetrates much farther into the galaxy, revealing previously hidden star clusters, star-forming regions, shocked gases, glowing 'bubbles' and more. The complete mosaic is about 400,000 by 13,000 pixels, and a 180' printed version is being shown at the American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis. A zoomable, annotated version of two different variants on the image (as well as some additional information on the science) is available at Alien Earths, a NASA- and NSF-supported education site." The Spitzer survey is already causing a stir potentially bigger than that raised when Pluto was deemed not a planet: two minor spiral arms of the Milky Way may be demoted.
Okay, I realize the tag says !eliot, but when the summary says: Spitzer, penetrates, revealed, and shocked, it makes me think that Slashdot is trying to embed secret messages in TFS.
i've had just about enough of your vassar bashing.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
well they should've shot it in low iso, those damn ccd noise is unbearable
And here I was thinking I was gonna see hi-res pictures of Eliot's whore with his jizz on it...
And anyway, it's just the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
"two minor spiral arms of the Milky Way may be demoted."
I suspected something like this might happen, I just didn't dream that they'd go so far.
I mean, you have to be just a little suspicious about whether all star-forming arms are on an equal footing when you look at the names. There's Perseus and Sagittarius. Then we get to Scutum-Centaurus, and you have to wonder if the astronomers needed a leg up in the imagination department. And then all doubt vanishes when we get to the fourth arm...Norma. Yes, Norma. Like the girl who couldn't wait to get old enough to disown her parents, legally change her name to Chantal and get a job at the brass-pole ballet.
You just had to know they were having their doubts about arm number 4.
On a more positive note, the same bunch of guys who just slammed Scutum-Centaurus and, um, "Norma", are also telling us that they "obtained detailed information about our galaxy's bar, and found that it extends farther out from the centre of the galaxy than previously thought".
A bar that's closer to the house than you thought can't be a bad thing. Especially when you need to walk home.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Next time maybe they'll take the picture during the day.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."