IRAS Orion
31.07.1998

Do you recognize the constellation Orion? This striking but unfamiliar looking picture of the familiar Orion region of the sky was produced using survey data from the InfraRed Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). It combines information...

The Water Vapor Channel
23.03.2002

What alien planet's bizarre landscape lurks below these fiery-looking clouds? It's only planet Earth, of course ... as seen on the Water Vapor Channel. Hourly, images like this one (an infrared image shown in false-color) are brought to you by the orbiting Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites' (GOES) multi-channel imagers.

Eclipsed Moon in Infrared
10.01.1997

Last September's total lunar eclipse disappointed many observers in the Eastern and Midwestern US who were cursed with cloudy skies. However, the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite had a spectacular view from Earth orbit and SPIRIT III, an onboard imaging infrared telescope, was used to repeatedly image the moon during the eclipse.

Infrared Helix
1.09.1997

Five hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix, a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula - typical of this final phase of stellar evolution.

The Galactic Center in Infrared
8.07.2001

The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above photograph.

Red Saturn
10.02.2005

This strange, false-color image of otherwise familiar planet Saturn shows temperature changes based on thermal infrared emission in the gas giant's atmosphere and rings. Recorded from the Keck I telescope on Mauna Kea, the sharp, ground-based picture of Saturn's southern hemisphere is a mosaic of 35 images.

The Galactic Center in Infrared
7.09.2003

The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above photograph.

Galactic Centre Starscape
29.06.2000

Thirty thousand light-years distant, beyond the majestic dust clouds of the constellation Sagittarius, lies the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy. Hidden from optical view by the dust, the Galactic Centre region is a relatively unexplored starscape.