All Sky Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Mosaic Image
Details
Permalink to Details- Added to the Catalog
- Available for
- SOS
- Categories
- Space: Deep Space, Exploration
- Keywords
- All Sky
- Astronomy
- Galaxies
- Infrared
- Milky Way
- Space
- Wavelength
Description
Permalink to DescriptionThis is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), part of its All-Sky Data Release.
This map is centered on the Milky Way, our own galaxy, with the plane of the galaxy running along the equator. The Milky Way is shaped like a disk and the Solar System is located in that disk about two-thirds of the way out from the center. So we see the Milky Way as a band running through the sky. As we look toward the center of the Galaxy we are looking through more of the disk than when we are looking at large angles away from the center, and you can see a noticeable increase in stars (colored blue-green).
At high Galactic latitudes - the northern and southern hemispheres on the sphere - many of the individual specks and smudges of light are distant galaxies, while others are stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way. Particularly prominent in the southern hemisphere are the Large and Small Magellanic "Clouds," galactic neighbors of our own Milky Way galaxy. A helpful finder diagram can be found here.
There are some artifacts worth noting in the image. For the WISE image atlas, moving objects such as asteroids and comets were removed. However, some slower moving, bright objects, including the planets Saturn, Mars and Jupiter, did leave behind residuals. In addition, at several locations on the sphere there are small rectangular shaped features that result from the difficulty in matching background levels of individual atlas frames.
Three of the four wavelengths surveyed by WISE were used to create this image. The colors used in this image represent specific wavelengths of infrared light. Cyan (blue-green) represents light emitted predominantly from stars and galaxies at a wavelength of 3.4 microns. Green and red represent light mostly emitted by dust at 12 and 22 microns, respectively.
Notable Features
Permalink to Notable Features- This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
- A map of labeled features can be found here
- Cyan (blue-green) represents light emitted predominantly from stars and galaxies at a wavelength of 3.4 microns
- Green and red represent light mostly emitted by dust at 12 and 22 microns, respectively
Data Source
Permalink to Data SourceNASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team