Bringing the Universe to Earth

The NASA Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) project has released four processed images revealing a small sample of the mission's overall targets - a comet, a star forming region, the Andromeda galaxy and a distant cluster.

Since commencing its scan of the infrared sky around a month ago the telescope has already transmitted over a quarter of a million raw infrared images.

The prominent asteroid, Vesta, is currently visible in the evening sky with telescopes, binoculars and possibly even to the naked eye. Over the next few nights Vesta is at opposition - that is opposite the Sun when viewed from the Earth. Tonight, 17 February, the asteroid is expected to reach a brightness of around magnitude 6.1 very close to the limit for the human eye under favourable conditions.

Through the first survey the microwave emission from over 95% of the sky has been monitored, and by completion of the second survey in mid-June 2009 that number will rise to 100%. The image below shows the current all sky map from the HFI instrument. Clearly visible across the middle of the image is the galactic plane and various point sources. The red band traces the path covered through the next revolution.

On a rare clear night over Holland I was able to capture a number of images of the night sky that show Mars, the head of Orion, the Hyades and the Pleiades all in a line along the edge of my house.

There are two images available - one without annotations and one with. The quality is not great in places, but it shows that even in small towns the wonders of the night sky can still be seen.

In a very unique setting over Earth's colourful horizon, the silhouette of the space shuttle Endeavour is featured in this photo by an Expedition 22 crew member on board the International Space Station, as the shuttle approached for its docking during the STS-130 mission.

Credit: NASA