Comparison of the central part of the Milky Way at different wavelengths

This comparison shows the central regions of the Milky Way observed at different wavelengths.

The left panel shows compact sources of submillimetre radiation detected by APEX as part of the ATLASGAL survey, combined with complementary data from ESA’s Planck satellite, to capture more extended features.

The right panel shows the same part of sky again at even shorter wavelengths, the near-infrared, as seen by ESO’s VISTA infrared survey telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. Regions appearing as dark dust tendrils here show up brightly in the ATLASGAL view.

The significance of the colours varies from image to image and they cannot be directly compared.

Credit

ESO/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/VVV Survey/ESA/Planck/D. Minniti/S. Guisard
Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo, Martin Kornmesser