The two galaxies on the far left were unknown until 1968.
Although they would have appeared as two of the brighter galaxies on the night sky, the opaque dust of the
central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy had
obscured them from being seen in visible light.
The above image in
infrared light taken by the recently launched
Wide-Field
Infrared Survey Explorer
(WISE),
however, finds these galaxies in
great detail
far behind — but seemingly next to — the
photogenic Heart nebula (IC 1805).
The spiral galaxy
near the top is the easiest to spot and is known as
Maffei 2.
Just below and to its right is fuzzy-looking
Maffei 1,
the closest giant
elliptical galaxy to Earth.
The above
false-colored image spans three
full moons from top to bottom.
The Maffei galaxies each span about 15,000 light years across and lie about 10 million
light years away toward the
constellation of the Queen of
Ethiopia (Cassiopeia).
On the image right, stars, gaseous filaments, and warm
dust highlight a detailed
infrared view
of the Heart nebula.
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