Dark Matter ?

[Cdude]

Why I love science

The pictures illustrate "the stuff" that sits between the stars - the great clouds of dust and gas that billow about in space, aggregating in some places to form stars and dispersing in others as they are pushed about by the pressure of starlight.
In one picture of the Orion Nebula, Planck's instruments see concentrated fronts of material where stars are actively forming. In a second image of a far more sedate region of space in the Perseus Constellation, the structure and distribution of this material looks much more diffuse.

Planck's super-sensitive instruments work at a range of very long wavelengths, in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Scientists probe these different wavelengths to highlight particular features
.
At the lowest frequencies, the telescope sees the emission given off by electrons accelerating through the magnetic fields of our galaxy.
At intermediate wavelengths, the light detected by Planck is dominated by gas that has been excited by newly formed stars.
And at the highest frequencies in its range, the observatory maps the emission coming from the coldest clumps of dust that trace the matter falling in on itself to form new stars.

All of this information provides useful insight on the complex processes that go into sculpting our galaxy.

Remarkably, these images are just byproducts for Planck, which must filter out much of the light it detects to get at its primary target.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8645156.stm