Would you believe that this is our own Milky Way? It is not an artist's conception of what the Galaxy might look like to an outside observer, but rather a near‐infrared image of the inner reaches of the Milky Way, produced by the diffuse Infrared Background Experiment aboard the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite. COBE has been in Earth orbit since November. (See PHYSICS TODAY, March, page 17.)

Topics
Milky Way Galaxy, Space instruments
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© 1990 American Institute of Physics.
1990
American Institute of Physics
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