The Nearby Milky Way in Cold Dust
Explanation:
What shapes the remarkable dust tapestry of the nearby Milky Way Galaxy?
No one knows for sure.
The intricate structures,
shown above,
were resolved in new detail recently in a wide region of the sky imaged in far infrared
light by the
European Space Agency's
Planck satellite.
The
above image is a digital fusion of three infrared colors: two taken at high
resolution by Planck, while the other is an
older image taken by the now defunct
IRAS satellite.
At these colors, the sky is dominated by the faint
glow of very cold gas within only 500
light years of Earth.
In the
above image,
red corresponds to temperatures as cold as 10 degrees
Kelvin above absolute
zero, while white corresponds to gas as warm at 40 Kelvins.
The pink band across the lower part of the image is warm gas confined to the
plane of our Galaxy.
The bright regions typically hold dense
molecular clouds that are
slowly collapsing to form stars,
whereas the dimmer regions are most usually
diffuse interstellar gas and
dust known as
cirrus.
Why these regions have
intricate filamentary shapes shared on both large and
small scales remains a topic of research.
Future study of the origin and evolution of dust may help in the understanding the
recent history of our Galaxy as well as how
planetary systems
such as our Solar System
came to be born.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
