Scientists Put Three Billion Stars, Galaxies, and Other Space Objects in One Map

For four years, Pan-Starrs telescope in Hawaii took pictures of the sky in several colors: during this time, the device took over half a million photographs, and the scientists from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy later united them into a single image, The New York Times writes.

According to researchers, the resulting image is the largest digital map of space in the world: it features over 3 billion stars, planets, galaxies, and other space objects. The size of the final file is two petabytes, which roughly equals one billion selfies, and if the image is printed, it will be over two kilometers long.

One of the main tasks of the researchers when they started this project was to identify new objects: in particular, asteroids moving towards the Earth, which humanity will either have to destroy or direct elsewhere before they endanger our planet.

The image in high resolution is available here.