Seeing the known universe

The American Natural History Museum : Since 1998, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium have engaged in the three-dimensional mapping of the universe.The above movie (best seen in high definition) starts in Earth’s atmosphere and pulls out further and further into the cosmos.The Sun comes into focus, the orbits of the solar system shrink smaller and smaller, the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio stretch and distort, and, as the Milky Way recedes, the spidery structure of millions of other galaxies comes into view. Then, you reach the limit of the observable universe, the afterglow of the Big Bang.The movie is based on precise, scientifically accurate observations and research and is part of a new exhibit called Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City which opened on the 11 December.Last year, some 30,000 people downloaded the Digital Universe —which is based on the same maps—to their personal computers. The software will soon be updated with a more accurate and user-friendly software interface and is available to the public at no cost.