Thursday, May 27, 2010

Each dot in this image is a galaxy containing billions of stars

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand in New Herschel Image

Written by Nancy Atkinson

Image of the distant Universe as seen by Herschel’s SPIRE instrument Credit: ESA / SPIRE and HerMES consortia

Wow. Just wow. Each of the colored dots in this new image from the Herschel telescope is a galaxy containing billions of stars. These are distant luminous infrared galaxies, and appear as they did 10–12 billion years ago, packed together like grains of sand on a beach, forming large clusters of galaxies by the force of their mutual gravity.

PRAISE THE LORD!

2 comments: