Our Galaxy
in Many Kinds of Light
26,000 light years
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/D.Wang et al.; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC/S.Stolovy
Light takes on many forms—from radio to infrared to X-rays and more. And the Universe tells its story through all of these different types of radiation. So, in order to really understand the cosmos, astronomers need many different kinds of telescopes.
This image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy combines data from three NASA observatories. X-rays from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue and violet, near-infrared emission from Hubble is yellow, and the Spitzer Space Telescope infrared data are red. Observations using infrared light and X-ray light see through the obscuring dust to reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Near-infrared emission outlines the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars.
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