There are about one billion stars in there – this is more than has been in any other image produced by surveys

Dr Nick Cross, University of Edinburgh.

Astronomers have created an interactive mosaic of our Milky Way galaxy that shows something like a billion stars.

The project, which has been running for 10 years, combines data from the UKIDSS/GPS sky survey acquired by the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii with the VVV survey data acquired by the Vista telescope in Chile.

Astronomers at Edinburgh and Cambridge processed and compiled all the data used in the mosaic and have made it available to everyone around the world for study.

Check it out here.