Water Among the Stars
Date: 29 April 1997
Satellite: ISO
Depicts: Water Among the Stars
Copyright: Various, see below
Show in archive: true
The composite picture shows fingerprints of water vapour (labelled H2O) in widely differing infrared wavebands, as registered by two instruments of ESA's space telescope ISO when it was trained on the elderly star W Hydrae. In a high-resolution spectrum from the Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) the main water feature is the strong emission at wavelengths around 38 microns. The Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) picked up a large number of strong water-vapour emissions at wavelengths from 122 to 183 microns.
Last Update: 1 September 2019