An HD Panorama of our Milky Way

astronomicalwonders:

An HD Panorama of our Milky Way

The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, which we see edge-on from our perspective on Earth, cuts a luminous swath across this high-resolution  image. With this view the general components of our spiral galaxy come clearly into view, including its disc, marbled with both dark and glowing nebulae, which harbours bright, young stars, as well as the Galaxy’s central bulge and its satellite galaxies. There are 400 billion other stars in are galaxy and scientists now think that most of them have planets of their own. This image reminds me of what the great teacher and scientist Carl Sagan once said:

“We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.”~ Carl Sagan

Credit: ESO/Serge Brunier