by owlice » Fri Nov 05, 2010 7:46 pm
SPIRE-Captured Galaxies
http://www.h-atlas.org
Credit: ESA/SPIRE/H-ATLAS/S.J.Maddox
[attachment=0]apod_hatlas_zoom.jpg[/attachment][/i]
This is a small region of the submillimetre sky located in the constellation of Hydra the water snake, viewed by the SPIRE instrument on the Herschel Space Observatory as part of the Herschel-ATLAS survey. Herschel's SPIRE instrument contains an imaging photometer (camera) which operates in three wavelength bands centred on 250, 350 and 500 μm, and so can make images of the sky simultaneously in three sub-millimetre “colours”. Each pin prick of colour is a galaxy, there are over 2000 galaxies in this image alone, some seen as they were billions of years ago, and almost all so far away that they are seen by Herschel as a single point of light. Also visible as wispy structures draped across the image are diffuse clouds of dust in our own galaxy. This image makes up around 1/10th of the total area which will be observed by Herschel-ATLAS, in which astronomers should eventually find around 250,000 galaxies.
~ Text by Dr. Haley Gomez
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[size=120][b]SPIRE-Captured Galaxies[/b][/size]
http://www.h-atlas.org
Credit: ESA/SPIRE/H-ATLAS/S.J.Maddox
[float=left][size=80][i][attachment=0]apod_hatlas_zoom.jpg[/attachment][/i][/size][/float]This is a small region of the submillimetre sky located in the constellation of Hydra the water snake, viewed by the SPIRE instrument on the Herschel Space Observatory as part of the Herschel-ATLAS survey. Herschel's SPIRE instrument contains an imaging photometer (camera) which operates in three wavelength bands centred on 250, 350 and 500 μm, and so can make images of the sky simultaneously in three sub-millimetre “colours”. Each pin prick of colour is a galaxy, there are over 2000 galaxies in this image alone, some seen as they were billions of years ago, and almost all so far away that they are seen by Herschel as a single point of light. Also visible as wispy structures draped across the image are diffuse clouds of dust in our own galaxy. This image makes up around 1/10th of the total area which will be observed by Herschel-ATLAS, in which astronomers should eventually find around 250,000 galaxies.
~ Text by Dr. Haley Gomez