A new camera mounted on an existing telescope is being billed as the world's most powerful infrared survey camera. Its first picture is a doozie, rivaling the splendid images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The photo was made with the Wide Field Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. It shows clouds of gas and dust illuminated by stars in the southern half of the Orion nebula.

The camera records infrared light, or heat radiation, which is key to understanding many types of astronomical objects, including interstellar clouds, failed stars known as brown dwarfs, and compact but incredibly energetic galaxies known as quasars at the edge of the observable universe.

The camera "will be used to do surveys of the infrared sky which will detect objects one hundred times fainter than those in the deepest existing surveys," said Paul Hirst, WFCAM Instrument Scientist at UKIRT. "This survey program will take up to seven years to complete and will provide astronomers with a picture of the infrared sky to unprecedented depth."

The full image area of the new setup is 1,200 times larger than that covered by UKIRT's previous infrared camera, and 3,600 times larger than that covered by the Hubble Space Telescope's infrared camera.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: Joint Astronomy Center