Polarized Dust Lights Up Milky Way

Polarized Dust Lights Up Milky Way

Our Milky Way galaxy is ablaze with dust in this all-sky map from Planck, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with important NASA contributions. The towers of fiery colors are actually dust in the galaxy and beyond that has been polarized. The data show light of 353 gigahertz or 0.85-millimeter wavelengths, which is longer than what we see with our eyes.

Credits: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech