PIA13217: Coolest Orbs on the Block (Artist's Concept)
 Mission:  Spitzer Space Telescope
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
 Product Size:  3000 x 2400 pixels (w x h)
 Other  
Information: 
JPL News Release 2010-210
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA13217.tif (21.6 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA13217.jpg (208.9 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This artist's conception shows simulated data predicting the hundreds of failed stars, or brown dwarfs, that NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is expected to add to the population of known stars in our solar neighborhood. Our sun and other known stars appear white, yellow or red. Predicted brown dwarfs are deep red.

The green pyramid represents the volume surveyed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope -- an infrared telescope designed to focus on targeted areas in depth, rather than to scan the whole sky as WISE is doing. Spitzer found 14 of the coolest known brown dwarfs in this region, which is one-fourtieth the volume that WISE is combing. Astronomers think WISE will find hundreds of these cool orbs within 25 light-years from the sun (a region marked by the blue sphere).

Image Credit:
AMNH/UCB/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2010-06-24