The Planck telescope, which the European Space Agency launched in May last year has now surveyed 98% of the sky, and produced some very nice pictures indeed.

Planck is looking at the very coldest parts of the galaxy, the regions where stars form. It will be performing two full sky surveys, the first will be complete in May.

The images show cold dust. In this picture, the red swirls are the coldest bits – as cold as 12 degrees above absolute zero. White is warmer. The pictures show filaments of cold dust spreading across the galaxy, and these filaments are attached to the Milky Way, which is seen at the bottom. These filaments are around 500 light years from the Sun.

If you want to see more, go to Planck web page.

Image: ESA and the HFI Consortium,/IRAS