Biggest digital image of night sky needs 500,000 HD TVs for viewing

The biggest-ever digital image of the night sky has been released to public. The graphic created by Sloan Digital Sky Survey has been put together from more than 7million 2.8megapixel images and is so big 500,000 high-definition TVs would be needed to view it at its full resolution.

Prof Bob Nichol of the University of Portsmouth said: ‘The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III image represents the culmination of more than a decade of work.', Metro informs.

Using the new image scientists will be able to measure distances to more than a million galaxies detected in it, helping to provide data for a new project to create a 3D map of the universe called SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS).

It is hoped this will help solve the mystery of "dark energy" and how much of the universe is taken up by it.

Professor David Schlegel, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said: "Dark energy is the biggest conundrum facing science today and the SDSS continues to lead the way in trying to figure out what the heck it is.", Telegraph reports.