Spitzer Space Telescope

Spitzer Telescope has provided a dramatic new view of the Milky Way galaxy. It has mapped giant stellar nurseries, and revealed thousands of infant stars, as well as thousands of old stars, which have wrapped themselves in cocoons of gas and dust. Spitzer has also helped produce the best map of the Milky Way to date. The map reveals that the Milky Way probably has two major spiral arms wrapping around a long "bar" of stars in its center.