Herschel's Multi-Hued View of the Sky

A new image from the Herschel Observatory shows off the observatory's talents for seeing multiple wavelengths of light. The infrared observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important participation from NASA, can use two science instruments simultaneously to see five different "colors" of infrared, which is light that we can't see with our eyes.

The new composite picture features a dark and cool region of our Milky Way galaxy, where material is just beginning to be stirred together into new batches of stars. Much of this region would appear dark in visible-light views, but Herschel can see the very dim infrared glow of cold dust that is only slightly warmer than the coldest temperature theoretically attainable. Herschel's view reveals that this star-forming region is even richer in cold and turbulent material than previously believed.

"Herschel's infrared vision lets us sense the feeble heat from some of the coldest objects in the cosmos," said Paul Goldsmith, the NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Herschel is still in what is called the performance verification phase, in which its instruments are being fine-tuned and checked out. Some routine science observations have begun.