A 46 billion pixel photo to discover the Milky Way as you’ve never seen it before. This is the gift offered to us by German researchers, who recently unveiled the largest photo ever taken of our galaxy.
The image, which can be explored on a dedicated site, weighs 196 GB and has a resolution of 46 billion pixels. So don’t be surprised if it takes a while to load on your screen. Rest assured, your patience will be rewarded.
To make this photo, scientists from the Ruhr University in Bochum compiled 268 high-resolution photos taken by the Atacama Observatory (Chile) over the past five years. The image therefore only reveals the part of the Milky Way visible at night from the southern hemisphere.
In addition to this feast for the eyes, this research aims to locate objects with variable luminous intensity near the Milky Way. Some do not hesitate to see in these variations in luminosity a possible sign of extraterrestrial life.