This Is the Biggest 2D Map of the Universe. Here’s How to Use It
Scientists have pointed telescopes at the sky and mapped the cosmos for centuries. That relentless pursuit is producing maps that are bigger and more detailed than ever. But there’s one map that stands out above the rest, and now it’s the largest 2D map of the night sky ever created.
The best part? Anyone can play with it.
The map, called Data Release 11 or DR11, comes courtesy of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team, a collaborative effort between NSF NOIRLab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and other agencies and organizations.
Covering 75% of the sky across 5.6 trillion pixels, DR11 is the team’s most comprehensive map to date, built upon prior versionsof the same map. It expands on DR9 by 50% and brings back northern sky coverage missing from DR10. Based on 263,407 ground-based exposures by 160 scientists, the map catalogs 4 billion objects — including stars,...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to www.cnet.com. To see the full text click HERE
