Stunning nine gigapixel image is most detailed ever of our own galaxy

A telescope in Chile has captured the most detailed ever image of our home galaxy, the Milky Way – showing 84 million stars.

The nine gigapixel image is so big that at full size it would be 9m long and 7m tall.

The image captured by the British-built VISTA infrared survey telescope at the Europe Southern Observatory has ten times more data than previous studies.

It’s described as a huge step forward for the understanding of our home galaxy. A zoomable, full size version can be found here.

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“The unprecedented detail on numbers, types, and locations of stars towards the center of our galaxy is giving us exciting new tools to test competing models for how our galaxy is really structured and came to be as it is”, said Jim Emerson from Queen Mary, University of London.

The telescope was designed and built in Britain, before being shipped to Atacama, Chile, where the high location gives it a clear ‘view’ of our galaxy.

VISTA’s image could unlock the secrets of the heart of our galaxy.

Most spiral galaxies, including our home galaxy, the Milky Way, have a large concentration of ancient stars surrounding the center, that astronomers call the bulge.

Understanding the formation and evolution of the Milky Way’s bulge is vital for understanding the galaxy as a whole.

“By observing in detail the myriads of stars surrounding the center of the Milky Way we can learn a lot more about the formation and evolution of not only our galaxy, but also spiral galaxies in general,” explains lead author of the study, Roberto Saito of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.