Counting Stars in the Infrared Sky . ... Credit Copyright: J. Carpenter , M. Skrutskie , R. Hurt , 2MASS Project , NSF , NASA Explanation: The bulging center of our Milky Way Galaxy , dark cosmic clouds, the thin galactic plane, and even nearby galaxies are easy to spot in this sky view. But each pixel in the digital image is actually based on star counts alone -- as derived from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) database. ... U. Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day ...