This is incredible. But what is even more amazing, is that if you register and then add the overlays, you'll notice that almost any interesting object is already labeled and categorized, leading to photos of that object in even better resolution. And I'm speaking about objects which are found while using the biggest zoom level already.
Those links to further information contain so much additional data, that it left me really surprised how deeply surveyed the sky is, how much work has been put into mapping and categorizing the sky.
Goes to show how a relatively small set of scientists with perhaps some crowd sourcing can achieve. We have the capability of going much further if all humanity works together on understanding our place in the universe - imagine a million people working on this (annotation, survey, search) to build a catalog even more detailed. Makes one wonder if there will ever be a shared human vision - can capitalism deliver it to us or some other political ideology like socialism has it in itself to best tackle humanities problems and explore opportunities. Will we ever reach that point where the futileness of our daily existence is overridden by greater concerns. How do we ever reach such an "ideal" ideology? Is it only through the painful process of blind discovery? Has enough been done to atleast theorize on the best option? Or will it never be possible to even theorize and come up with a solution, forget about implementation. Space provides direct evidence of the wonders of our universe, while human existence provides one about a host of lost opportunities. Perhaps we must just wait for an advanced benign alien existence to rescue us and preserve our own unique wonder of existence. Perhaps enough of us realize this fast enough not to destroy ourselves before we do that.
Those links to further information contain so much additional data, that it left me really surprised how deeply surveyed the sky is, how much work has been put into mapping and categorizing the sky.
I'm baffled.