NASA Sends Mural To UMaine

ORONO (NEWS CENTER) -- NASA has sent a mural of the center of our galaxy to the Jordan Planetarium at the University of Maine.  It shows the deep center of the milky way.

Scientists used images gathered over several weeks from three observatories using infrared and xrays to piece this image together.  It shows stars that are forming, stars that have died and created gas bubbles and black holes.

"They're a beautiful image to enjoy and just to admire for the composition," said Alan Davenport, the planetarium's director.  "They're like a very modernistic, impressionistic interpretation of our galaxy. And that's true on another level because these are pictures of things you can't see with the human eye."

To gather the images two telescopes used infrared imaging, and a third that used xray imaging.  Experts say if you used your naked eye to see this, you'd just see clouds.

"However we take the technology with infrared and xray telescopes to see right through the clouds, just just clouds in our neighborhood, but clouds thousands and thousands of light years away that block our view," said Neil Comins, a professor of astronomy at UMaine.  "And since the infrared and x-rays can see through these clouds, we can see these features absolutely invisible to us otherwise."

The planetarium is hosting a special discussion Thursday at 7 p.m. about the murals. It's free and open to the public.