Fire in the Sky

The Japanese AKARI satellite has been quietly orbiting the Earth since May 2006, snapping hauntingly beautiful pictures of the stars in infra-red. The following image may seem unfamiliar, but in fact it is the universe as seen in the 9 micrometre wavelength. Rather than just stars, the camera also captures interstellar dust heated up by the starlight.

The bright strip above is the Milky Way, as seen by AKARI, but if you need a little more help here’s a comparison between visual light and infra red, this time in the 140 micrometre range. The constellation Orion is marked on both images, this is the first time it has been captured in infra-red at such a resolution above the 100 micrometer range.

You can see more images and keep up to date with AKARI at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.

2 comments August 6th, 2007