Matthew Lang

This morning, the European Space Agency unveiled a new, highly detailed sky map of the Milky Way Galaxy that showcases the brightness and positions of nearly 1.7 billion stars. It’s the most comprehensive catalog of stars to date, and it includes precise details about many of the stars’ distances, movements, and colors as well. With the map’s release, astronomers are hoping to use this information to learn more about the structure of our galactic home and how it first formed billions of years ago.

— New galactic map shows the positions and brightness of 1.7 billion stars by The Verge

The numbers are just mind boggling, precise positions of over 1 billion stars.

The 360 degrees view of what the Gaia spacecraft mapped is worth clicking through for.

I love this idea of picking the best three shots from a day-trip or an event.

So, I’m going to do what I can to temper my happy shutter finger the next time. I’m going to pretend that I only have three shots available to me. Three shots to tell the story I’m trying to tell and help me remember the three most important moments.

— Three Shots by Patrick Rhone

I must admit though, I would be hard-pressed to pick my favourite three. I may have to extend it to four or five, but definitetly no more than seven.