Planck and Herschel have begun returning vibrant new images of the Milky Way Galaxy. The satellite duo is scanning the sky at infrared wavelengths that have not been well-studied in the past.

The speed of star formation from diffuse hydrogen gas has been a subject of strong controversy. Here, AMNH scientists use the rotation rate of a galaxy's spiral arms as compared to the galaxy's gas emission to discover the timescale for star formation.