NASA Earth Observatory: King Fire in California, False-Colour Infrared image

On Sept. 19, 2014, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured these images of the King fire in Eldorado National Forest. 

In the false-colour image, burned forest appears red; unaffected forests are green; cleared forest is beige; and smoke is blue. 

As of Sept. 23, the blaze had charred 36,320 hectares (89,571 acres).

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

ESA Herschel: Revealing Milky Way's warm heart

What heats gas near supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies? 

Astronomers have looked at the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, with ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and discovered a rich variety of molecules at surprisingly high temperatures - up to 1000 K. 

The new data suggest that the molecular gas is heated up by shocks, in addition to ultraviolet radiation from massive stars close to the Galactic Centre. 

Shocks develop in the gas as the material surges towards Sagittarius A*, the region harbouring the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.

About 26 000 light-years away, the central region of the Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, hosts the closest super-massive black hole to Earth.

With an estimated mass equivalent to about four million times that of our Sun, this black hole currently accretes matter from its surroundings at a very gentle pace, like the majority of super-massive black holes in massive galaxies across the Universe.

A few hundred times closer to Earth than the nearest galaxy hosting an actively accreting black hole, Sgr A* provides a unique chance to study the environment of super-massive black holes in great detail.

However, we observe the Galactic Centre through the dense disc of the Milky Way, where gas and dust in the spiral arms of the Galaxy absorb visible light.

The best way to study the interstellar material around Sgr A* is thus via infrared and radio observations.

New research based on spectroscopic data from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has resolved the innermost portion of the Milky Way – a few light-years around Sgr A* – for the first time at far-infrared wavelengths.

The team of astronomers, led by Javier Goicoechea from the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, Spain, was able to isolate the far-infrared emission from all the interstellar components that surround Sgr A* – neutral atomic, molecular and ionised gas, as well as dust.

Javier Goicoechea

In particular, they exploited the characteristic signature from several molecules to trace the temperature, density and other properties of the material that orbits the central black hole and is possibly falling onto it.

"We detected a surprisingly rich variety of molecules in the environment of Sgr A* that really exceeded our expectations," comments Goicoechea.

"The molecules range from highly excited carbon monoxide and water vapour, to hydrogen cyanide and many light molecules that play a critical role in the chemistry of the interstellar medium. Some of them had not been detected before Herschel," he adds.

More information on ESA Herschel site here

JWST: "Infrared: Beyond the Visible" explores the wonder of infrared astronomy

The answers to some of the universe's greatest cosmic mysteries are written across the night sky, inscribed in light we can't see with our human eyes — but it won't be invisible to us forever.

"Infrared: Beyond the Visible" explores the wonder of infrared astronomy and the promise of the upcoming Webb Space Telescope.

Get a sense of the sights Webb will capture, with its Hubble-sharp vision and ability to reach into the farthest depths of space and time.

Join the journey of discovery, and when you're done, check out the other links for more on the infrared universe.

When Galaxies Collide: Tinkerbell Triplet

Probably the cutest merger, the Tinkerbell Triplet is the result of three galaxies coming together to form a fey object.

The collision is located about 650 million light-years away and is seen here in both visible and infrared wavelengths.

Image: ESO

ESA Herschel Image: Luminous Infrared Galaxies

Thousands of galaxies crowd into this Herschel image of the distant Universe. Each dot is an entire galaxy containing billions of stars.

For more than a decade, astronomers have puzzled over strangely bright galaxies in the distant Universe.

These ‘luminous infrared galaxies’ appear to be creating stars at such phenomenal rates that they defy conventional theories of galaxy formation.

Now ESA’s Herschel infrared space observatory, with its ability for very sensitive mapping over wide areas, has seen thousands of these galaxies and pinpointed their locations, showing for the first time that they are packing themselves closely together, forming large clusters of galaxies by the force of their mutual gravity.

The mottled effect in the image gives away this clustering. All the indications are that these galaxies are busy crashing into one another, and forming large quantities of stars as a result of these violent encounters.

This image is part of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) Key Project, which studies the evolution of galaxies in the distant, ancient Universe. The project uses the SPIRE (Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver) instrument on Herschel and has been surveying large areas of the sky, currently totalling 15 square degrees, or around 60 times the apparent size of the Full Moon.

This particular image was taken in a region of space called the Lockman hole, which allows a clear line of sight out into the distant Universe. This ‘hole’ is located in the familiar northern constellation of Ursa Major, The Great Bear.

The galaxies seen in this image are all in the distant Universe and appear as they did 10–12 billion years ago. They are colour coded in blue, green, and red to represent the three wavebands used for Herschel’s observation. Those appearing in white have equal intensity in all three bands and are the ones forming the most stars. The galaxies shown in red are likely to be the most distant, appearing as they did around 12 billion years ago.

HerMES will continue to collect more images, over larger areas of the sky in order to build up a more complete picture of how galaxies have evolved and interacted over the past 12 billion years.

ESA & SPIRE Consortium & HerMES consortia - Follow the link to the ESA Herschel image site - OSHI

ESA - Space Science - Herschel finds a hole in space - images

ESA - Space Science - Herschel finds a hole in space - images

NGC 1999 is the green tinged cloud towards the top of the image. The dark spot to the right was thought to be a cloud of dense dust and gas until Herschel looked at it. It is in fact a hole that has been blown in the side of NGC 1999 by the jets and winds of gas from the young stellar objects in this region of space.


This image combines Herschel PACS 70 and 160 micron data, and 1.6 and 2.2 micron data with the NEWFIRM camera on the Kitt Peak 4 meter.


Credits: ESA/HOPS Consortium

ESA’s Herschel infrared space telescope has made an unexpected discovery: a hole in space. The hole has provided astronomers with a surprising glimpse into the end of the star-forming process.


Stars are born in dense clouds of dust and gas that can now be studied in unprecedented detail with Herschel. Although jets and winds of gas have been seen coming from young stars in the past, it has always been a mystery exactly how a star uses these to blow away its surroundings and emerge from its birth cloud. Now, for the first time, Herschel may be seeing an unexpected step in this process.


A cloud of bright reflective gas known to astronomers as NGC 1999 sits next to a black patch of sky. For most of the 20th century, such black patches have been known to be dense clouds of dust and gas that block light from passing through.

When Herschel looked in its direction to study nearby young stars, the cloud continued to look black. But wait! That should not be the case. Herschel’s infrared eyes are designed to see into such clouds. Either the cloud was immensely dense or something was wrong.

Investigating further using ground-based telescopes, astronomers found the same story however they looked: this patch looks black not because it is a dense pocket of gas but because it is truly empty. Something has blown a hole right through the cloud. “No-one has ever seen a hole like this,” says Tom Megeath, of the University of Toledo, USA. “It’s as surprising as knowing you have worms tunnelling under your lawn, but finding one morning that they have created a huge, yawning pit.”


The astronomers think that the hole must have been opened when the narrow jets of gas from some of the young stars in the region punctured the sheet of dust and gas that forms NGC 1999. The powerful radiation from a nearby mature star may also have helped to clear the hole. Whatever the precise chain of events, it could be an important glimpse into the way newborn stars disperse their birth

ESA Herschel Images: Our Celestial Backyard

A picture of the first field observed in the H-ATLAS survey, made by combining the images made with the SPIRE camera at 250, 350 and 500 microns.

The colours in the image are not real but have been used to represent the different infrared wavelengths.

The faint blue whisps at the top of the image show dust in our own Galaxy and the bright object just above the centre of the picture is a 'Bok globule', a dense cloud of gas and dust, also in our Galaxy, in which a small star may be forming.

The other objects in the picture are all galaxies, at distances up to 12 billion light-years.

The image shows that the survey is detecting objects in our celestial ‘backyard’ and also other, further ones that we are seeing as they were not long after the Big Bang.

Credits: ESA/ATLAS Consortium

NASA: Modis Infrared satellite image of Cyclone Ului

Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

An infrared satellite image of Cyclone Ului on March 18 at 0247 UTC (10:47 p.m. March 17) clearly showed an eye, and strong, high, powerful thunderstorms (as cold as -63 Fahrenheit) around it.

Northeastern Queensland, Australia is on alert as Tropical Cyclone Ului continues tracking through the Coral Sea today, and is forecast to make a landfall on March 20. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites have been providing satellite data on the storm to assist forecasters.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has issued a Tropical Cyclone Watch from Cardwell to Yeppoon in Queensland. There is also a High seas weather warning in effect for "metarea 10."

Ocean vessels can expect very high seas and have been asked to report conditions to the Bureau. Meanwhile the Solomon Islands have also posted a Tropical Cyclone Watch for Rennell/Bellona.

Read the full article here

NASA: Launches WISE - InfraRed Sky-mapping Telescope

NASA Launches WISE - The InfraRed Sky-mapping Telescope

NASA launched a new space observatory Monday to scan the skies for new celestial objects in infrared light.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) lifted off atop a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:09 a.m. EDT (1409 GMT) on Monday.

The launch was originally scheduled for Friday, but NASA delayed it to allow engineers to fix a glitch on the rocket's booster steering engine. The issue was resolved and the launch went off seemingly without a hitch.

NASA's new telescope will view the heavens with infrared eyes, which see long-wavelength light that is shrouded from optical lenses. The $320 million spacecraft is designed to survey the entire heavens in about six months, creating an all-sky map of the universe in infrared light.

"The infrared is important to us in astronomy because it shows us where the cool things are in the universe, things much cooler than the sun," said Jon Morse, director of astrophysics at NASA, during a Wednesday briefing. "The universe looks much different in infrared."

VISTA comes online (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy)

A new telescope - VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) - has just started it's working life at ESO's Paranal Observatory and has made its first release of pictures.

VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths and is the world's largest telescope dedicated to mapping the sky.

Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. Spectacular new images of the Flame Nebula, the centre of our Milky Way galaxy and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster show that it is working extremely well.

VISTA is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions.

VISTA's main mirror is 4.1 metres across and is the most highly curved mirror of this size and quality ever made - its deviations from a perfect surface are less than a few thousandths of the thickness of a human hair - and its construction and polishing presented formidable challenges.

VISTA was conceived and developed by a consortium of 18 universities in the United Kingdom [1] led by Queen Mary, University of London and became an in-kind contribution to ESO as part of the UK's accession agreement. The telescope design and construction were project-managed by the Science and Technology Facilities Council's UK Astronomy Technology Centre (STFC, UK ATC).

Provisional acceptance of VISTA was formally granted by ESO at a ceremony at ESO's Headquarters in Garching, Germany, attended by representatives of Queen Mary, University of London and STFC, on 10 December 2009 and the telescope will now be operated by ESO.

"VISTA is a unique addition to ESO's observatory on Cerro Paranal. It will play a pioneering role in surveying the southern sky at infrared wavelengths and will find many interesting targets for further study by the Very Large Telescope, ALMA and the future European Extremely Large Telescope," says Tim de Zeeuw, the ESO Director General.

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