ESA Portal - 2010 March 17
Giant filaments of cold dust stretching through our Galaxy are revealed in a new image from ESA’s Planck satellite. Analysing these structures could help to determine the forces that shape our Galaxy and trigger star formation.
Planck is principally designed to study the biggest mysteries of cosmology. How did the Universe form? How did the galaxies form? This new image extends the range of its investigations into the cold dust structures of our own Galaxy.
Cold dust structures within 500 light-years of the Sun (ESA/HFI Consortium/IRAS)
Filamentary structures are apparent on large scales (as shown in the Planck
image, right) and small scales (as seen in the Herschel image of a region in the
Aquila constellation, left) in the Milky Way. (ESA/Herschel/SPIRE and PACS
consortia (left), ESA/Plank/HFI Consortium (right))
This Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) map depicts the sky at 100 µm.
The red box indicates the region covered by a Planck image. (ESA/IRAS)
Planck space observatory unveils the coldest regions of our galaxy
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
British National Space Centre (BNSC)
Plank Mission Update
