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 VISTA telescope has captured stunning new images of the Orion Nebula.

NASA's latest infrared space telescope—the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE—was launched on December 14, 2009. It recently began a six-month survey of the entire sky around Earth.

Astronomers have unveiled a brand-new atlas of the galactic plane of the Milky Way.