The butterfly

This is a digital representation--as part of the Digital Universe, seen inside the dome at the Hayden Planetarium--of a view of the observable galaxies of our universe, based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the most ambitious attempt to catalog the galaxies ever done.

The Earth is at the center of this image, and it appears somewhat like the wings of a butterfly because, according to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, "The region between the wedges was not mapped by the SDSS because dust in our own galaxy obscures the view of the distant universe in these directions."

Click here to read the related backstage story on the science behind New York's Hayden Planetarium. And click here to check out the entire Road Trip 2010 package.

July 13, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

Photo by: Daniel Terdiman/CNET

| Caption by: Daniel Terdiman