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Herschel Releases First Images of Milky Way

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on 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."

5 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Awesome pictures, but... by mujadaddy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apparently you don't know anything about stars. Red ones are cool, Blue ones are hot.

    --
    Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
    "Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
  2. Well, I learned something today by bill_mcgonigle · · 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

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
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    1. Re:Well, I learned something today by melikamp · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes yes. And another good one is this logarithmic map of the Universe [PostScript], , other formats.

  3. Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache. by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The best part is that it's actually a real Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA.gov.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  4. Re:why 70 and 160um? by davecl · · 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.