Herschel Releases First Images of Milky Way

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."

Comments

In case of Slashdot, serve cache.

[palegray.net]

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

Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache.

[FooAtWFU]

Reminds me of water on Mars.

Well, I learned something today

[bill_mcgonigle]

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

Re:why 70 and 160um?

[davecl]

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.