>>>33550
About that image …
"You are probably asking, where did the IR images come from that are used in Google Sky and SkyView? The answer can be found on the Google Sky website. Google says the IR images came from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) which was a joint venture between the United States (NASA) the United Kingdom (SERC) and the Netherlands (NIVR). In the IRAS canonical paper, the abstract reads: …"
"… Caltech analyzed the IRAS images back in 1983 - the images that appear in Google Sky today."
Source here: http://www.tribnet.org/cgi-bin/article.cgi?function=display_article&article_id=183
You're looking at an image from 1983. The face-like appearance is due to the way the survey was taken and meshed together and what was in the sky in 1983 (if memory serves it was Saturn, but possibly another wandering star).