Herschel Releases First Images of Milky Way

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Herschel Releases First Images of Milky Way

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday October 2, 2009 @06:42AM from the searching-for-moties dept.

davecl writes "The Herschel space observatory has just released stunning five-color images of a section of our own galaxy, showing the complex twisted structures of the interstellar medium that drive star and planet formation. The images are the first produced using two of Herschel's instruments, SPIRE and PACS, simultaneously and show the power of this approach. This image is just 2x2 degrees in size, but future Herschel programs will image the entire galactic plane at this sensitivity and resolution. Full scale science operations with Herschel begin in just a few weeks. More information on the project can be found from the ESA, the mission blog (which I contribute to) and from the SPIRE instrument team. The BBC is also covering this story."

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In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by palegray.net · 2009-10-02 06:44 · Score: 4, Funny

There's a cached version of one of the pictures here: color Milky Way image.

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1. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 06:51 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Fuck you.
2. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by spun · 2009-10-02 06:51 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  You got that link wrong, butterfingers.
  
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3. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by FooAtWFU · 2009-10-02 07:00 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Reminds me of water on Mars.
  
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4. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by clone53421 · 2009-10-02 07:19 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The best part is that it's actually a real Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA.gov.
  
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5. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 07:23 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Of course, check the date it was posted.
6. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by mxharlow · 2009-10-02 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  hahaha. clever.
7. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by treeves · 2009-10-02 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, but they would have saved like 100 Grand if they HAD used that instead of the Whatchamacallit they actually used. Almost as expensive as going to Mars.
  
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Herschel by mcgrew · 2009-10-02 06:48 · Score: 2, Funny

The Herschel space observatory has just released stunning five colour images of a section of our own Milkey Way galaxy showing the complex twisted structures of the interstellar medium that drive star and planet formation
I wanted to open a bar named after the astronomer this telescope is named after, and a chocolate company sued me. Then Mars filed suit too, saying they owned the Milky Way.

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Awesome pictures, but... by BadAnalogyGuy · 2009-10-02 06:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

FTFA: What is striking in the image is how impressive the colour-coding allows us to differentiate material that is extremely cold (red) from that which is warmer.
I don't mean to take anything away from the great work you guys are doing, but wouldn't it make sense to color code these things in a way that the warmer areas were red? It would jive better with our existing preconceptions.
1. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by mujadaddy · 2009-10-02 06:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Apparently you don't know anything about stars. Red ones are cool, Blue ones are hot.
  
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2. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by FooAtWFU · 2009-10-02 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, but you totally missed the point: To the public, red = hot, blue = cold. The Public would be able to better appreciate an image presented with that sort of a color scheme.
  
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3. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by BlackPignouf · 2009-10-02 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  If you're not happy with that, you could always complain to Planck.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_law
4. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by mujadaddy · 2009-10-02 07:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I didn't miss the point at all. People know that a white hot iron is hotter than a red hot one. Using the color scheme that is more accurate is an educational service. Why do you want to promote ignorance?
  
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  Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
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5. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by ajs · 2009-10-02 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  To the general public starts=pretty. There's not much more to be said than that. If you know what "warm" means in an astronomical sense, then then you already know what you're looking for in terms of color variation. If you don't, then what's interesting is that it's pretty (and I don't want to belittle that sense of awe that comes from looking at the sky, but let's not confuse it with an understanding of what you're looking at).
6. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  It would jive better with our existing preconceptions.
  I don't know what your preconceptions are, but the shorter wavelength and higher energy of blue light has been deeply ingrained in my brain since my bookwormish childhood.
7. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by El+Torico · 2009-10-02 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  I don't mean to take anything away from the great work you guys are doing, but wouldn't it make sense to color code these things in a way that the warmer areas were red? It would jive better with our existing preconceptions.
  After you change the color code, you can re-write the Herschel Observatory's web site in Eubonics, Chav, or some other form of degraded English.
  
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8. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by Tomfrh · 2009-10-02 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  Where did the poster say they wanted to promote ignorance?
  When he suggested that data should be faked so as to conform to incorrect notions of reality.
9. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by palegray.net · 2009-10-02 11:54 · Score: 1
  
  While the OP didn't actually say that, the end result would indeed be the act of promoting ignorance. Of course, this is a case of one convention being followed by the general public and another being used by the scientific community. Given that this image is scientific in nature, I'd have to go with the coloration as it stands. If this were a photo of bathtub faucets, I'd reverse that view.
  
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weird summary by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 06:58 · Score: 0, Troll

Just 2 x 2 degrees? If I was was a galatic goat and trying to mate, being off by 2 degress would land my private in an ear..
Cool! by stokessd · 2009-10-02 07:02 · Score: 1, Funny

I can see my house from there!
Damn, I've got to clean my gutters.
Sheldon
1. Re:Cool! by geekoid · 2009-10-02 07:56 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  thanks for reminding me to clean my gutters this weekend...dick~
  
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Looks kinda blurry... by HotNeedleOfInquiry · 2009-10-02 07:07 · Score: 1

Compared to Hubble images.

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1. Re:Looks kinda blurry... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 08:00 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Well, you would a mirror at least two orders of magnitude larger to achieve the spatial resolution of Hubble. This is a far-infrared instrument.
2. Re:Looks kinda blurry... by slick_rick · 2009-10-02 18:08 · Score: 1
  
  THIS! Holy hell they look like canvas. You can see a distortion pattern running top to bottom and left to right, but it isn't at a 90 it is funky. Hopefully something was just whack and once they finish tweaking everything the noise will disappear. If not then at least it is the ESA (!NASA) that borked it this time?
  
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Down Already by swieler · 2009-10-02 07:08 · Score: 0

Mirror: http://herschel.esac.esa.int.nyud.net/FirstParallelModeImages.shtml
Am I the only one... by Evil+Shabazz · 2009-10-02 07:10 · Score: 3, Funny

... who first read this headline as, "Hershey Releases First Images of Milky Way" and wondered what was so interesting about a new candy bar?

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1. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 08:05 · Score: 0
  
  no. there are tons of humorless nerds here that have already posted about that way before you did. so you're a slow, humorless nerd. i hope you sleep well knowing that
2. Re:Am I the only one... by steelfood · 2009-10-02 08:28 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I was actually curious as to when Hershey acquired Mars.
  
  --
  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
3. Re:Am I the only one... by sconeu · 2009-10-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  Damn... someone beat me to it.
  
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Well, I learned something today by bill_mcgonigle · 2009-10-02 07:16 · Score: 4, Informative

So, I thought the Milky Way visible in the sky at night was made up of stars you can resolve individually and stars you can't resolve individually. Apparently it's also made up of gas and dust that reflects the star light.
+1 intarwebs.
And since I'm commenting, this graphic from Wikipedia is among the most awesome I've seen:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Universe_Reference_Map_(Location)_001.jpeg

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1. Re:Well, I learned something today by element-o.p. · 2009-10-02 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Very cool -- thanks for the link!
  
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2. Re:Well, I learned something today by melikamp · 2009-10-02 07:50 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yes yes. And another good one is this logarithmic map of the Universe [PostScript], , other formats.
3. Re:Well, I learned something today by Unordained · 2009-10-02 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  I remember a similar graphic from when I was a kid, in the front of a national geographic atlas. I wonder if this was an intentional knock-off?
  http://www.jointquest.com/jointquest-old/NationalGeographicTheUniverseMap.jpg
4. Re:Well, I learned something today by bill_mcgonigle · 2009-10-02 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder if this was an intentional knock-off?
  Sure seems that way, though I appreciate the CC license.
  
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5. Re:Well, I learned something today by MMatessa · 2009-10-02 09:04 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  ...and another good one is this cartoon logarithmic map of the Universe.
6. Re:Well, I learned something today by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 10:09 · Score: 0
  
  My favourite link like this is here:
  http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/index.html
  It's "interactive" - you can zoom in/out, rather than trying to get it all on one picture.
Wow by goobermaster · 2009-10-02 07:21 · Score: 1

I can hear the fire engine's sirens from here!
clueless needs help by Anonymous Coward · 2009-10-02 07:21 · Score: 0

How do you photograph the Milky Way without leaving it?
1. Re:clueless needs help by clone53421 · 2009-10-02 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  The Herschel space observatory has just released stunning five colour images of a section of our own galaxy
  
  --
  Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
2. Re:clueless needs help by Teun · 2009-10-02 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  From the inside.
  Pfff...
  
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3. Re:clueless needs help by JeanBaptiste · 2009-10-02 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  The same way we photograph the Earth without leaving it.
Five colors? by scorp1us · 2009-10-02 07:39 · Score: 1

Surely we can get more than that!

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1. Re:Five colors? by zach_the_lizard · 2009-10-02 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  They'd get more colors if only they weren't cheap and used Monster cables. It transformed my cold lifeless home theater with digital equipment by making the bits, well......well....warmer! Yes, warmer! With these new warmer bits, the picture quality improved, and I could see things I couldn't before.
  
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2. Re:Five colors? by nschubach · 2009-10-02 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  The cables don't make the bits warmer. It aligns the bits so they travel faster through the copper medium. The lacing of the wire also helps to catch any stray electrons flying off the bits and pushes them back into the proper location so the destination gets more of them than that cheap cable. This is why only 5 of the colors are available. The rest of the bits were lost because of the cheap cables.
  
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3. Re:Five colors? by Cryogenic+Specter · 2009-10-02 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  And wire kinks. They cause problems too. The 0's do not really have a problem, but the 1's get caught in the kinks pretty easily. I offer a wire straightening service if anyone is interested.
4. Re:Five colors? by Tomfrh · 2009-10-02 13:39 · Score: 1
  
  Tell me about it! I've been rewiring my stereo speakers and I pretty much have to kink the wire around one corner to make it fit. I'm getting the worst bit-turbulence at the kink. It's disrupting the music to the point that not even my shaktis can clean it up!
Slashdotted by hrimhari · 2009-10-02 08:21 · Score: 1

Slashdot. The plague of interesting websites.

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why 70 and 160um? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2009-10-02 08:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

What's with the choices for emission? are they common spectra for hydrogen or something?

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1. Re:why 70 and 160um? by davecl · 2009-10-02 10:45 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In these images you're largely seeing thermal emission from dust at temperatures of about 20-50K. The wavebands chosen cover the peak of the black body spectrum at these temperatures so we can get an accurate measure of how warm of cold the dust is.
Anyone Else See this as Dr. Manhattan's work? by telomerewhythere · 2009-10-02 10:33 · Score: 0

I think I see Dr. Manhattan in the bottom picture of the first link. Or at least his head.
I see two dog heads in there... by BradeRunna · 2009-10-02 12:29 · Score: 1

The first at bottom center, blue galaxies for eyes. The second upper right, again blue for eyes. Kinda look like labs.
Sorry, dog lover
1. Re:I see two dog heads in there... by Msdose · 2009-10-02 19:35 · Score: 1
  
  Especially in stereo, Its obviously a picture of a nude Julie Lewis. I Knew it!