This is a stunning view showing the centre of the Milky Way galaxy in infrared light that was made with data from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
With visible light, dust between the Earth and the galactic centre obscures the view. However, infrared observations see through this dust, and this false-colour image shows old, cool stars in blue while the dust illuminated by hot, younger stars is red. The brightest white spot in the middle is at the very centre of the galaxy, which also marks the site of a supermassive black hole, about 26,000 light years away. The plane of the Milky Way’s flat disk is apparent as the main, horizontal band of clouds.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Stolovy (SSC/Caltech).
Post by David Malin
Photo of the Day 2nd anniversary statistic: 1009 subscribers to the RSS feed.
