Herschel seeks hidden galaxies

The composite image above has been constructed from a series of images taken by two instruments : SPIRE (SPIRE is a three band imaging photometer and an imaging Fourier transform spectrometer) and PACS (an imaging photometer and integral field line spectrometer for wavelengths between 60 and 210 µm).The image uses color to code the different observed wavelengths: the blue denotes 70 µm, green is 160 µm emission, while red is the combination of the emission from all three SPIRE bands at 250/350/500 µm. The color-coding differentiates material that is extremely cold (red) from that which is slightly warmer.The image contains an incredible network of filamentary structures with surprising features indicative of a chain of near-simultaneous star-formation events, glittering rather like beads of water on a string in the sunlight.The images are of a 2 x 2 degree field in an area near the Galactic Plane, 60 degrees from the Galactic Center, in the constellation of the Southern Cross.This area of the night sky is considered to be a good test case for the telescope as the area is crowded with many molecular clouds along the line of sight, which should show whether the telescope can resolve fine detail easily. The images shown here were obtained on 3 September 2009 and are based on just over 6 hours of observations.Since stars form in cold, dense environments, the composite image easily locates the star-forming filaments that would be very difficult to isolate from a map made at a single far-infrared or submillimeter wavelength.