Ever grew up thinking that you would love to become an astronomer? Apart from looking at stars all day long (you can also do so by being the papparazzi – OK, so that’s a bad pun), there are other stuff for you to do – such as the 3D map of the universe, which is the most complete version to date. This latest 3D map actually reveals more details about where we are in the entire universe’s hierarchy, showing off all visible structures out to about 380 million light-years, and this will also comprise of around 45,000 of our neighboring galaxies.
The map is possible because it uses assembled data from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) Redshift Survey (2MRS), taking 10 years to scan the whole night sky in near-infrared light. The survey relied on a couple of ground-based telescopes, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Ariz., and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
You won’t be needing a pair of active shutter 3D glasses to view this map, only the right kind of computer hardware and software. Does this make you more interested than ever being an astronoomer?
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