4.4 million galaxies are visible in this new map of the night sky

A new map of the night sky has just been released for the first time. The photo, published by scientists at Durham University, shows an incredibly detailed picture of millions of galaxies and space objects.

Many of the 4.4 million galaxies captured in the photo contain massive black holes or are generating new stars at high speed. Most of the light spots visible in the image are billions of light-years away from Earth, scientists say. Some of the rarest objects captured in the image include colliding galaxies and flaming stars in the Milky Way.

Researchers used a European radio telescope to capture 3,500 hours of observations, enough data to fill 20,000 laptops. They discovered almost a million new objects.

“Every time we create a map, our screens are filled with new discoveries and objects that have never been seen by human eyes before,” said astronomer Timothy Shimwell of ASTRON and Leiden University in a statement. “This release is only 27% of the entire survey and we anticipate that it will lead to many more scientific advances in the future.”

“We have opened the door to new discoveries with this project, and future work … will process the data with 20 times better resolution,” added Dr. Leah Morabito, a Durham University scientist.

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• International Space Station
• NASA