Up at the second Lagrangian point, where last week Planck became the coldest object in space, its travelling companion, Herschel, has released the first images from one of the instruments on board, SPIRE.

The pics are test images, and when compared to images of the same galaxies, by the Spitzer space telescope, look pretty good (press release).

In fact, they look loads better than the Spitzer versions of the same galaxies – namely Messier 66 and Messier 74.

These images are taken with as-yet-uncalibrated instruments, so the future for Herschel looks like it could be pretty exciting.

Images: Herschel image: ESA and the SPIRE Consortium, Spitzer image: NASA / Spitzer SINGS