Milky Way, Mars & Saturn

The Milky Way Galaxy, our home in the Universe, is a Barred Spiral Galaxy, a Galaxy with outer sweeping arms, and a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. It is slightly above average size, approximately 100,000 light years across. It contains between 100 and 400 billion stars and is thought to also contain at least that number of planets and moons. Our Solar System resides about 27,000 light years from the Galactic Centre, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral shaped regions of stars, gas, and dust.

From our vantage point on Earth, we look through the disk of stars in our Galaxy, which to the naked eye look like a hazy band of light, hence the name ‘Milky Way’ translated from the Greek γαλακτικός κύκλος (galaktikos kýklos) meaning ‘Milky Circle.’  In the middle of the image is the galactic core region, the location of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the centre of our Galaxy. Above that, towards the middle-top of the image is the bright star Antares, a red supergiant star 550 light years from us. Above that is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, interstellar clouds, and nebulae around stars in the constellation Ophiuchus. The blues are reflected light from the nearby extremely hot blue giant stars, and the red from emission nebula, enormous hydrogen clouds that are bombarded with radiation from nearby stars and emit their own light.

Also included this image is the bright rusty-red planet Mars above and to the left of Antares, and to the right and below Antares the faint champagne-yellow planet Saturn, both drifting across the Milky Way in their orbits.

This image was composed from nearly 1,000 photographs taken over a three-year period, far away from the bright light pollution of Australia’s cities. Countless hours were then spent processing and aligning the photos into the final piece. A very lengthy project, but well worth it.