Sloan Digital Sky Survey / (1/5)
◄ ►The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a major multi–spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a 2.5 m wide–angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in south–east New Mexico, United States.
In this map – based on SDSS Data Release 16 – every single square represents a galaxy or a quasar with millions and millions of stars which may be surrounded by planets like the earth. The earth is located in the center of the map from where the observations are made.
The Milky Way splits the observable area into two parts filled with billions of galaxies. The parts, separated by the galactic plane, are referred to as the Northern Galactic Hemisphere (NGH) and the Southern Galactic Hemisphere (SGH). In the dark areas objects are obscured by the Milky Way. Thus lie hidden behind myriads of stars and huge clouds of gas and dust and therefore can not be observed.
The animation shows a random set of 500000 galaxies and quasars with a depth of almost 13 billion light years building clusters as well as large voids. Those filaments present the structure of the universe – the so called cosmic web – where our galaxy, the Milky Way, is only a tiny dot.
Credit: SDSS