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."

In case of Slashdot, serve cache.

[palegray.net]

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

Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache.

[spun]

You got that link wrong, butterfingers.

Re:

[mxharlow]

hahaha. clever.

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[treeves]

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.

Re:In case of Slashdot, serve cache.

[FooAtWFU]

Reminds me of water on Mars [nasa.gov].

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[clone53421]

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

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[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, check the date it was posted.

Herschel

[mcgrew]

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.

Awesome pictures, but...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

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[mujadaddy]

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

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[FooAtWFU]

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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[mujadaddy]

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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[Tomfrh]

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.

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[palegray.net]

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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[ajs]

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).

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[El Torico]

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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[BlackPignouf]

If you're not happy with that, you could always complain to Planck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_law [wikipedia.org]

Cool!

[stokessd]

I can see my house from there!

Damn, I've got to clean my gutters.

Sheldon

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[geekoid]

thanks for reminding me to clean my gutters this weekend...dick~

Looks kinda blurry...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Compared to Hubble images.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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[slick_rick]

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?

Am I the only one...

[Evil Shabazz]

... 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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[steelfood]

I was actually curious as to when Hershey acquired Mars.

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[sconeu]

Damn... someone beat me to it.

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 [wikimedia.org]

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[element-o.p.]

Very cool -- thanks for the link!

Re:Well, I learned something today

[melikamp]

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

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[MMatessa]

...and another good one is this cartoon logarithmic map of the Universe [xkcd.com].

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[Unordained]

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 [jointquest.com]

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[bill_mcgonigle]

I wonder if this was an intentional knock-off?

Sure seems that way, though I appreciate the CC license.

Wow

[goobermaster]

I can hear the fire engine's sirens from here!

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[clone53421]

The Herschel space observatory has just released stunning five colour images of a section of our own galaxy

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[Teun]

From the inside.

Pfff...

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[JeanBaptiste]

The same way we photograph the Earth without leaving it.

Five colors?

[scorp1us]

Surely we can get more than that!

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[zach_the_lizard]

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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[nschubach]

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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[Cryogenic Specter]

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.

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[Tomfrh]

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

[hrimhari]

Slashdot. The plague of interesting websites.

why 70 and 160um?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

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

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.

I see two dog heads in there...

[BradeRunna]

The first at bottom center, blue galaxies for eyes. The second upper right, again blue for eyes. Kinda look like labs.

Sorry, dog lover

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[Msdose]

Especially in stereo, Its obviously a picture of a nude Julie Lewis. I Knew it!