Nasa's Spitzer Telescope Pictures 'Countryside' Of Our Galaxy

Nasa has released new pictures of the 'countryside' of our galaxy.

The new images depict the barren area of the Milky Way, far from its more crowded core.

But the pictures taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope show that these areas are in fact full of "blooming stars", Nasa said.

"We sometimes call this flyover country," said Barbara Whitney, an astronomer from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in a statement.

"We are finding all sorts of new star formation in the lesser-known areas at the outer edges of the galaxy."

Our solar system is located about two-thirds from the centre of the Milky Way in the Orion Spur, an offshoot of the Perseus spiral arm.

Most of our familiar images of the galaxy point towards the bulky centre, but Spitzer is allowing researchers new views of the area 'behind' our Solar System, on the outer rim of our galaxy.

The pictures are part of the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, or Glimpse-360 project, which aims to map the topography of our galaxy.

For more details about how the images were made, head over to Nasa's website.