NASA's fledgling Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) opened its eyes a few weeks ago, and astronomers have just released the first of a torrent of spectacular images from it. Since its launch last December, WISE has been surveying the sky, taking data continuously as it spins on its axis and orbits the Earth. A few images have been released before, but these new ones are fully processed, scientifically-calibrated, and gorgeous. I have to start with this one, because it's just so pretty! Behold Comet C/2007 Q3, aka Siding Spring:
Holy dirty snowballs! That's gorgeous, a classic comet. When this image was taken, on January 10, 2010, the comet was 340 million kilometers (200 million miles) from Earth. That's a good ways off, so I'm impressed with the detail of this image! It's actually a four-color image: blue is 3.6 microns (about 5 times the reddest wavelength the human eye can ...
