Planck All-Sky Images Show Cold Gas and Strange Haze

This all-sky image shows the distribution of carbon monoxide (CO), a molecule used by astronomers to trace molecular clouds across the sky, as seen by Planck.
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February 13, 2012

New images from the Planck mission show previously undiscovered islands of star formation and a mysterious haze of microwave emissions in our Milky Way galaxy. The views give scientists new treasures to mine and take them closer to understanding the secrets of our galaxy.

Planck is a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA participation.

"The images reveal two exciting aspects of the galaxy in which we live," said Planck scientist Krzysztof M. Gorski from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Warsaw University Observatory in Poland. "They show a haze around the center of the galaxy, and cold gas where we never saw it before."
MORE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-040&cid=release_2012-040&msource=12040&tr=y&auid=10285816

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