The Online Space Panorama Collection

This website contains a collection of zoomable panoramic images of space. Together, they represent a small selection of the most popular images ever produced by NASA and the ESO.

All of the panoramas were produced using the highest resolution sources available, often measured in gigapixels, or thousands of times the resolution of a normal digital camera. They were constructed using the open-source program OpenZoom.

Controls: Scroll wheel or i/o and +/- to zoom. Click-and-drag to move or arrow keys and w,a,s,d. Right-Clicking will display a menu, including full screen view.

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

The Orion Nebula

Thousands of stars are forming in the cloud of gas and dust known as the Orion nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. Source

The Orion Nebula (widefield)

This wide-field view of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), lying about 1350 light-years from Earth, was taken with the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The new telescope’s huge field of view allows the whole nebula and its surroundings to be imaged in a single picture.

The Flame Nebula

This image, the first to be released publicly from VISTA, the world's largest survey telescope, shows the spectacular star-forming region known as the Flame Nebula, or NGC 2024, in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) and its surroundings.

The Helix Nebula

This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed celestial images ever made. The image shows a fine web of filamentary "bicycle-spoke" features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas around a dying, Sun-like star.

The Carina Nebula

This image, released for Hubble's 17th anniversary, shows a region of star birth and death in the Carina Nebula. The nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. Source

Sagittarius

With this remarkable VISTA mosaic we look deep into the dusty heart of our own Milky Way galaxy in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). About one million stars are revealed in this picture, most of them not seen in visible light pictures. As well as absorbing light, the dust also scatters blue light from the distant stars and makes the central part of this huge starscape appear very red.

Milky Way (360 Degree)

This is the sky of the Earth. The vault of heaven, which in reality envelops us in a dark velvet sphere spotted with stars, is seen here projected onto a plane. This improbable 360-degree panoramic image, covering the whole of the vault of heaven, embodies thus the cosmic landscape in which our small blue planet is immersed. Source

Milky Way (Spitzer)

More than 800,000 frames from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope were stitched together to create this infrared portrait of dust and stars radiating in the inner Milky Way. Source

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

This giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across, or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. About 100 billion of them could be similar to our Sun.

Stephan’s Quintet

Three of the galaxies in this famous grouping, Stephan's Quintet, are distorted from their gravitational interactions with one another. One member of the group, NGC 7320 (upper left) is actually seven times closer to Earth than the rest.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years.

Groth Strip

Several hundred images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have been woven together into a rich tapestry of at least 50,000 galaxies. The Hubble view is yielding new clues about the universe's youth, from its "pre-teen" years to young adulthood. Source