In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, NASA is releasing a never-before-seen vista of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way Galaxy to planetaria, museums, libraries, nature centres and schools across America.

These sites will unveil a giant six foot by three foot print that combines near infrared views from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The mosaic provides one of the most detailed views ever of the Galaxy's chaotic core.

The panorama captures snapshots of vigorous stellar birth, through young hot stars and cool old stars, to the violent explosions of stars reaching the ends of their lives. This activity plays out against a backdrop of a supermassive black hole – nearly four million times more massive than our Sun.

Chandra's X-ray vision reveals the diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the black hole, marked by the bright region to the lower right, and from the winds of massive stars. In the image, pink represents lower energy X-rays while blue indicates high energy. Infrared light picks out more than a hundred thousand stars and glowing dust clouds in the form of globules, filaments and pillars that cocoon embryonic stars.

The images will be unveiled at 152 institutions across the nation to celebrate 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the skies.

Our latest 132-page Astronomy Now special edition is an extravaganza of astronomy for the year ahead, with a complete 30-page guide to observing the planets, moon, meteor showers, two solar eclipses, and the deep sky in 2010.
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Hubble Reborn
Hubble Reborn takes the reader on a journey through the Universe with spectacular full-colour pictures of galaxies, nebulae, planets and stars as seen through Hubble's eyes, along the way telling the dramatic story of the space telescope, including interviews with key scientists and astronauts.
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3D Universe
Witness the most awesome sights of the Universe as they were meant to be seen in this 100-page extravaganza of planets, galaxies and star-scapes, all in 3D!
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This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.
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Explore the Universe with these new versions of the award-winning Starry Night Software. Available now from the Astronomy Now Store.
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Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!
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This new poster features some of the best pictures from NASA's amazing Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
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