Heart and Soul Nebulae

Green and red swirls of nebulae are seen over a field of bright blue stars with W3 glowing white. Two spectra are laid over the background image, one green, one red.

W3, one of the 25 Milky Way regions the HyGAL project will study, is seen as the glowing white area in the upper right of this image of the Heart and Soul Nebulae, taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). SOFIA looked at the abundances of six hydride molecules in W3, the spectra of two of which are shown in the box at left. Image credit: Nebulae: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA; Spectra: Jacob et al.

SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, was a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope (with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters or 100 inches). Flying into the stratosphere at 38,000-45,000 feet put SOFIA above 99 percent of Earth’s infrared-blocking atmosphere, allowing astronomers to study the solar system and beyond in ways that are not possible with ground-based telescopes. SOFIA was a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR.