Space photo provides detailed view of the Universe

The international Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III (SDSS-III) collaboration is releasing the image free to all. It expects astronomers and ’citizen scientists’ will use it to make exciting new discoveries.

The composite image has been put together over the last decade from more than seven million 2.8 megapixel images, creating a colour image of more than a trillion pixels.

Prof Bob Nichol of Portsmouth University, the scientific spokesperson for SDSS-III, said: ’This image represents the culmination of more than a decade of work and opens opportunities for many years of scientific discoveries yet to come.’

The new image is at the heart of new data being released by the SDSS-III collaboration as part of the 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. Along with previous data releases that it builds upon, it gives the most comprehensive view of the night sky ever made.

SDSS data has already been used to discover nearly half a billion astronomical objects, including asteroids, stars, galaxies and distant quasars. The latest, most precise positions, colours and shapes for all these objects have also been released this week.