NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope has captured a beautiful picture of IC 342. While that sounds like a droid out of Star Wars, it is actually a galaxy that lies close to the galactic plane of the Milky Way. What that means is that all the dust in the galactic plane of the Milky Way blocks much of IC 342’s visible light. That makes it hard to estimate the distance to the galaxy. The current estimate ranges from 6.6 million light years to 11 million light-years away from earth. That is a pretty high range of uncertainty.
The image shows that IC 342 is a spiral galaxy much like our own. The dust and gas are mainly found in the arms of the galaxy, which new stars being formed in both the arms and core. The blue stars in the image reside in our own Milky Way.
This image was made from observations by all four infrared detectors aboard WISE. Blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is primarily light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is primarily emission from warm dust.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
You can see another image of IC 342 at the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
