Scientists release biggest 2D map of the universe

NNKosmatos about 3 hours ago 23 commentsRead Article on newscenter.lbl.gov

DE version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

Direct link to Legacy Survey Sky Viewer: https://viewer.legacysurvey.org

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

80% Positive

Analyzed from 282 words in the discussion.

Discussion (23 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

thewanderer1983•about 1 hour ago

And here I thought this was the biggest 2D map.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/01/a-logarithmic-map-of-...

pants2•about 1 hour ago

Seems like some of the most interesting objects are missing or have weird red/green artifacts, why is that?

doodlebugging•about 2 hours ago

That's impressive. Though I think there's too much space on this plane. I'm wondering whether it is actually a 2D view since it obviously isn't planar.

To paraphrase Samuel L Jackson - "I have had it with this m'f'ing space on a plane! Everybody strap in I'm about to open some f'in' windows."

Proceeds to crank open an array of telescopes to get another 3D perspective of a 4D universe so we can project it onto our 2D viewing devices as if that were reality.

Towaway69•about 2 hours ago

I wonder how many of the red points/stars are black hole stars[1]

[1] https://news.mit.edu/2026/astronomers-discover-brand-new-typ...

br0ceph•about 23 hours ago

is there anyway to download the entire map, and play with it locally

ionwake•about 2 hours ago

i note the hyperspace bypass is missing

Razengan•about 1 hour ago

Could this be used for a new Elitelike game?

fercircularbuf•about 19 hours ago

Wow, this is humbling

sambapa•about 2 hours ago

In what ways? Galaxies are just fat fucks, they don't do no philosophy, play piano or shitpost.

Towaway69•about 2 hours ago

If you squint, look at just the right portion, at just the right zoom level, the stars line up and spell out "thanks for all the fish".

sambapa•about 2 hours ago

Hm, that's a good thing to consider - are there portions of the sky in which stars align into a coherent text?

antonvs•about 1 hour ago

Not many people know this, but the actual universe is 3D, so this map is misleading.

therobot24•about 23 hours ago

make sure you watch the youtube video embedded in the website, it adds some real perspective of just how massive this is

cwmoore•about 2 hours ago

Not this data, but from nearby 3D star map with rotations:

https://www.ouruboroi.com/moire3

cryptolobster•about 1 hour ago

Holy shit, this is very impressive

zuzululu•about 2 hours ago

why is there so many weird flat lines is that an artifact?

this is fascinating wish there was a 360 VR version of this

truly immense scale

dylan604•about 2 hours ago

back when I was playing with making VR content, this is one of the first things I did by using an 8K rectilinear image from NASA. Mapped it to a sphere and lined up Polaris at the zenith, and then just had one of the best nights of stargazing I had ever had!