See to the edge of the universe with this two-decade astronomy project

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Zooming out from Earth to the edge of space

For perspective on the universe's absolute massiveness, watch this four-minute video. Beginning at a facility in Germany, the "camera" pulls back revealing the surrounding countryside, Germany itself, Europe, the Earth, and so on. At one point stars form galaxies and galaxies, at a distance, become as seemingly "small" as the individual stars.

Fly through the deepest image of space ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Taken over 11 days between 2003 and 2004, when the space telescope was aimed at a seemingly empty patch of the sky, the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field revealed about 10,000 sources of light, most of which are entire galaxies. This visualization expands the 2D image into a 3D view spanning 12 billion years.

DESI is mapping the universe's expansion over the last 11 billion years

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is conducting a five-year redshift survey of over one-third of the sky, measuring the receding motions and locations of about 35 million galaxies and millions of stars using light captured by 5,000 optical fibers.

The entire observable universe in one map

Scientists believe we’ve only discovered about 5% of the universe. Here’s a map of what we’ve found so far, visualized using a log scale.

Zoom into this mega-photo of the Milky Way galaxy

A telescope in Chile has captured 21,400 exposures of the central region of the Milky Way galaxy, and scientists created one composite image showcasing over 3 billion celestial objects. Zoom in here.

Explore the scale of the universe in this interactive adventure

The sheer enormity of the universe escapes our ability to conceive of its scale, despite the best efforts of human imagination. This interactive provides an intuitive sense of how small we are, from a single astronaut to the Milky Way and beyond.

Mapping the universe's 1.3 million quasars

Quasars form the core of active galaxies where supermassive black holes devour unimaginable amounts of matter. You can see a map of all 1.3 million of these objects with this 3D map. It was assembled with data from the Gaia spacecraft and shows how the spread of dark matter across space matches that described by the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Gaia mapped two billion stars in the Milky Way

Using geometric parallax, the European Space Agency mission made position measurements accurate to 2.78 × 10⁻¹⁰ degrees, revealing large-scale galactic structure and dynamics. Remnants of ancient galactic mergers were also identified within the Milky Way.

View maps of the Milky Way across all wavelengths of light

By combining imaging from ground- and space-based telescopes designed to capture specific wavelengths of light, phenomena across a range of energies can be observed. If limited to a single frequency range, astronomers would not be aware of some cosmological events, such as those whose visible light is blocked by dust.

A map of the Milky Way

Curious about the layout of the cosmos? This resource presents a detailed map of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Learn the basic structure and identify prominent global clusters, nebulae, main arms, spurs, and constellations. With numerous different maps and mediums, get oriented with the universe’s configuration and where exactly we fit into it.

Explore how far you've traveled through space while living on Earth

Using the "Cosmic Odometer," users can enter their birthday and learn how far they have moved through space due to the combined effects of Earth's rotation around its axis, the planet's orbit around the sun, the solar system's trajectory through the Milky Way, and the galaxy's motion through the universe.

New ways of seeing the cosmos have redrawn the map of human identity

From Galileo’s crude spyglass to the James Webb Space Telescope, each technological leap has expanded our observational reach and redefined philosophical and moral conceptions of our place in the universe. Identifying signs of life through the study of exoplanet atmospheres would represent the next great revolution.

Astronomers use a set of scaffolding methods to measure distances across the universe

Different methods are used depending on how far away an object is—from radar for nearby planets, to parallax for stars, to redshift and supernovae for distant galaxies. These tools allow scientists to chart the universe across unimaginable scales using astronomical units (AU), light-years, and parsecs.

Zoom from Earth to Maisie's galaxy

Discovered by the Webb Telescope in 2022, Maise’s Galaxy (named after the nine-year-old daughter of the scientist who discovered it) was found as part of a survey of a section of the universe known as the Extended Growth Strip, home to thousands of galaxies. This video takes you from Earth to Maise’s galaxy, formed roughly 300 million years after the birth of the universe.

Edwin Hubble showed that the universe is full of galaxies and is expanding

In the 1920s, Hubble showed that the Andromeda "nebula" was another galaxy. He later discovered that galaxies move away from us at speeds proportional to their distance—a breakthrough now known as the Hubble-Lemaître law, foundational to Big Bang cosmology.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

A data visualization exploring six decades of spacewalks

Astronauts' initial small step for mankind may standout, but how many steps have we taken so far? Space and moonwalks further our understanding of spaceflight, celestial bodies, and space itself. Created to resemble a constellation map, this chart...

View a gallery of Einstein rings

As light from a distant galaxy spreads in all directions, rays that pass around a massive object, such as another galaxy, may be bent around it. If the massive object is positioned between the distant galaxy and our telescopes, we may observe this deflected light forming a ring around it.

Explore a gallery of astronomical images curated by the European Space Agency

The collection includes illustrations and images of aurorae, planets, stars, galaxies, stellar nurseries, star clusters, exoplanets, quasars and black holes. Mission photography of astronauts, shuttles and telescopes is also featured.

How many galaxies are there? (Hint: a lot)

The universe is considered by some to be infinite, while others find comfort in the fact that it may have an end. Click for more.

Voyager 1 captured Earth as a 'Pale Blue Dot' from 6 billion kilometers away

On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe took the farthest photo of Earth ever captured. Earth appears so small in the image that it takes up less than a single pixel out of 640,000 in the photo's frame.

Visualize a model of all of time, where our lives span less than the width of a human hair

The massive model was built across a Mojave Desert lake bed using 800 lights spaced just 10 meters apart. Within the model, the entirety of human civilization appears only in the final centimeter.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Ten underrated astronomy studies from 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope understandably received a lot of coverage in 2022. This astrophysicist wants to highlight ten major studies published last year you might have missed.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Intended to last four years, the Voyager spacecraft have lasted nearly five decades

Launched in 1977, the Voyager probes still send data from billions of miles away, guided by engineers who’ve turned down promotions to stay with the mission. The team continues to support the probes as they move 37,000 mph through space.

View a gallery of neutron stars and related phenomena captured by Chandra

Launched on July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is one of NASA's "Great Observatories" and has captured high-energy astronomical phenomena, including neutron stars and their surrounding nebulae, which are composed of the outer stellar layers expelled by their predecessors. Data from other observatories, including Hubble, help produce spectacular composite images.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight