The Luminous Galaxies chart is the biggest ever 3D map of the universe.
Colour spectrum:
Our Milky Way galaxy (blue) is seen here
absorbing its galactic neighbour, Sagittarius, (red trail) in 2003;
the colour of a galaxy indicates its age
These images from the ongoing Sloan Digital Sky Survey III
show the northern (left) and southern hemispheres of the Earth,
as seen from space, were produced in early 2011
