February 1, 2012

An interstellar travel towards Vela C for the 1000 days of Herschel space telescope

It's been 1000 days the Herschel, the European space observatory, maps the Universe in the infrared domain searching for worlds in formation and galaxies on the borders of the Universe. A small travel towards Vela C, at 2100 light-years is proposed to you in the spectacular animation.


Travel through the Sails constellation and the Vela C molecular cloud.

Going through a Supernovae remanent, you are going back in time to understand that nowadays observations are only the visible part of a larger interstellar gas structure. Thanks to the infrared light radiated by the interstellar dust, the Vela C molecular cloud and its star nursery, could be discovered by Herschel space observatory detectors. The colors used are not reals, the infrared being invisible, but nonetheless calibrated as function of the radiance of the observed objects. The blue hues represent the visibles lights. the red-pink hues represent the infrared.
Direction: Novae Factory. Editorial responsible: Vincent Minier.