Starship Asterisk*

Thanks RJN... The questions of Michel are nice too

Well... if we forget about the dots for a moment... What really intrigues me about this picture is the weird form the galaxy has in infrared. I see a ring of fire (which is really a huge spiral arm). Outside the ring, I see some matter that seems to be pulled away from the ring (left) and a partial ...

At least one of the red dots corresponds to a fluffy white spot in visible light, so that would be a background galaxy, I guess.

I've compared the images. Most red dots appear as really faint gray dots in the visible light image.

If they were Bok-globules, as Art says, they should be within the milkyway, which seems a bit strange to me because they are so separated from everything. But maybe they are, I don't know.

I don't think they are astroids or dust... The red dots are all over the picture, so they are not associated with the galaxy. Maybe they are background galaxies or foreground stars.

Which means that they are... ?

Yes, I was wondering too... What are all the red dots? The picture is really sprinkled with them.