On November 10th 2009, NASA and friends celebrate 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609. A extremely high quality picture derived from 3 different telescopes – the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory – will show the visible, infrared and x-ray panoramic views respectively together in one amazing picture (see http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/400177main_MilkyWayCenterComp3000.jpg ).

From the article: “The composite image features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy’s core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our Sun.”

Happy 400th anniversary!

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/milkyway_heart.html