A less lonely view of stars and galaxies

Most of us would have seen images of the vast universe, with its millions of stars and galaxies. Those images that have seared our mind came from the Palomar Sky Survey in the 1950s.

But in the years ahead, the images that we and our children see will look far deeper into outer space. These images will come from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), whose third and final installment was released recently.

The SDSS images contain 10 times more objects than the earlier Palomar survey, and show half a billion objects, both stars and galaxies in equal measure.

The new pictures will provide more clues to some of the most fundamental questions that we seek to answer. Like, why is the universe expanding at a faster rate, when typically gravity should pull objects closer to each other? This, in turn, might answer the single biggest question: if there was a big bang, why did it occur? Sure it will be many years before all these questions are answered, and many of us may not be around to hear it. But for now, let us look forward to seeing deeper into infinity as the SDSS images are released into the public domain.