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Artist’s Illustration of the Present and Early Milky Way
What a difference 11 billion years makes, as can be seen in these two comparative views of our Milky Way galaxy. The top view shows how our galaxy looks today; the bottom view, how it appeared in the remote past. This photo illustration is based on a Hubble Space Telescope survey of evolving Milky Way-type galaxies.
[Top View] – The current night sky is dominated by the white glow of myriad middle-aged stars along the lane of the Milky Way. Interstellar "pollution" from thick dust lanes can be seen threading through the long band of stars. They are interspersed with a few pinkish emission nebulae from ongoing star formation. Thousands of stars appear as pinpoints of light throughout the sky.
[Bottom View] – This is an imaginary view of our young Milky Way as it may have appeared 11 billion years ago, as seen from the surface of a hypothetical planet. The night sky looks markedly different than the view today. The Milky Way's disk and central bulge of stars are smaller and dimmer because the galaxy is in an early phase of construction. The heavens are ablaze with a firestorm of new star formation, seen in the pinkish nebulae glowing from stars still wrapped inside their natal cocoons. The handful of stars visible in the night sky are blue and bright because they are young.
The graphic of today's Milky Way was based on an all-sky image from Axel Mellinger and the Finkbeiner all-sky H-alpha survey. The illustration of the early Milky Way was constructed from the all-sky image from Axel Mellinger and Robert Gendler's image of the M33 galaxy.
About the Data
- Data DescriptionData DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.This release is based on Hubble data from proposals 12177 and 12328: P. van Dokkum (Yale University), C. Steidel (Caltech), H.-W. Rix (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), M. Kriek (University of California, Berkeley), G. Kauffmann (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), G. Brammer (European Southern Observatory), D. Erb (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), M. Franx (Leiden University), N. Schreiber (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics), X. Fan (University of Arizona), R. Quadri, I. Labbe, and P. McCarthy (Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington), D. Marchesini (Tufts University), A. Pasquali (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), J. Hennawi (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), D. Wake (Yale University), and S. Patel (Leiden University). The science teams comprise the following: Patel et al. Paper: S. Patel, M. Fumagalli, and M. Franx (Leiden University), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.), J. Leja (Yale University), I. Labbe (Leiden University), G. Brammer (European Southern Observatory), R. Skelton and I. Momcheva (Yale University), K. Whitaker (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), B. Lundgren (University of Wisconsin, Madison), A. Muzzin (Leiden University), R. Quadri (Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington), E. Nelson (Yale University), D. Wake (University of Wisconsin, Madison), and H.-W. Rix (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics). van Dokkum et al. Paper: P. van Dokkum, J. Leja, and E. Nelson (Yale University), S. Patel (Leiden University), R. Skelton and I. Momcheva (Yale University), G. Brammer (European Southern Observatory), K. Whitaker (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), B. Lundgren (University of Wisconsin, Madison), M. Fumagalli (Leiden University), C. Conroy (University of California, Santa Cruz), N. Schreiber (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics), M. Fumagalli (Leiden University), M. Kriek (University of California, Berkeley), I. Labbe (Leiden University), D. Marchesini (Tufts University), H.-W. Rix and A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), and S. Wuyts (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics).
- Release DateNovember 14, 2013
- Science ReleaseHubble Reveals First Scrapbook Pictures of Milky Way’s Formative Years
- Credits
Related Images & Videos
Galaxies Similar to the Milky Way
This composite image shows examples of galaxies similar to our Milky Way at various stages of construction over a time span of 11 billion years. The galaxies are arranged according to time. Those on the left reside nearby; those at far right existed when the cosmos was about 2...
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
