* Astronomy

A plot of over one million of the brightest "extended sources" detected by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) shows their structure.


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The vast majority of these infrared extended sources are galaxies. Visible is an incredible tapestry of structure that provides limits on how the universe formed and evolved.
Many galaxies are gravitationally bound together to form clusters, which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters, which in turn are sometimes seen to align over even larger scale structures.

The vertical blue streak originates from the very bright stars inside our own Milky Way Galaxy.