Billions of Celestial Objects Revealed in Gargantuan Survey of the Milky Way

Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering billion celestial objects — arguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the Dark Energy Camera, built by the US Department of Energy, at the NSF’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NOIRLab. More information and download options: Credit: DECaPS2/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/E. Slawik Image Processing:  M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab) Music: Stellardrone -- Airglow