News Photos
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Caption: The Milky Way, it turns out, is no ordinary spiral
galaxy. According to a massive new survey of stars at the heart of the galaxy
by Wisconsin astronomers, including professor of astonomy Edward Churchwell
and professor of physics Robert Benjamin, the Milky Way has a definitive
bar feature -- some 27,000 light years in length -- that distinguishes it
from pedestrian spiral galaxies, as shown in this artist's rendering. The
survey, conducted using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, sampled light from
an estimated 30 million stars in the plane of the galaxy in an effort to
build a detailed portrait of the inner regions of the Milky Way.
Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)
Date: 2005
300 DPI JPEG version
Photo use
Photographs are available to media organizations and University of Wisconsin-Madison departments for news, editorial and public relations uses, both print and electronic, that are directly related to UW-Madison. They are NOT available for generic use. For university-related use -- including textbooks, commercial products or advertising -- please contact Jeff Miller, University Communications, (608) 262-0067 or jbmille1@wisc.edu.
Published photos must include a credit ("photographer's name/University of Wisconsin-Madison" or "courtesy of"). The specific credit and other details are also embedded in the digital file, which can be viewed by using Photoshop and selecting "file>file info."
None of these images may be modified, altered or used in any way that changes or misrepresents the photograph's content or overall context.