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This stunning image shows the full view of the Milky Way from the Southern Hemisphere.

Scientists stitched together the enormous image from more than 700 observations by the APEX telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert. It reveals finer details of the galaxy than seen in earlier images, including most of the places where new stars are born—such as the mysterious Galactic Center—and cold regions where dust and gas hover mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero.

The image is also the first to image our galaxy’s southern half in sub-millimeter wavelengths—light between infrared and radio waves. By combining views using different wavelengths of light, scientists add extra layers of detail. Here, the new telescope data shows up in red against an infrared background image—rendered in blue—from an earlier scan by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite.

View Images This comparison shows the central regions of the Milky Way observed at different wavelengths. In order from the top: sub-millimeter radiation, captured by APEX; infrared; near-infrared; and visible light, the most familiar way to visualize our galaxy. Photograph by ESO/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/VVV Survey/ESA/Planck/D. Minniti/S. Guisard

Since we live in the Milky Way, our view of the galaxy from Earth is edge-on from the inside, so it appears as a band all the way across the sky. Skywatchers usually refer to this band as the Milky Way, but actually all the stars we see in the night sky are part of the galaxy.