James Harold writes "Today NASA has unveiled a new infrared mosaic of our galaxy. The result of over 800,000 individual images collected by the Spitzer Space Telescope, it is the largest, highest-resolution and most sensitive infrared picture ever taken of the Milky Way (and will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future). Because Spitzer sees in infrared, it penetrates much farther into the galaxy, revealing previously hidden star clusters, star forming regions, shocked gases, glowing "bubbles" and more. The complete mosaic is about 400,000 by 13,000 pixels, and a 180' printed version is being shown at the American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis. A zoomable, annotated version of two different version of the image (as well as some additional information on the science) is available at www.alienearths.org/glimpse (a National Science Foundation and NASA supported education site). The Spitzer Space Telescope site is http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/." Link to Original Source
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