Two nearby galaxies peek out through the dust

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, only launched a couple of months ago, and has already done spectacular work. Gulping down huge tracts of sky every day, it has already discovered over 2000 asteroids — not seen, but actually discovered — including several that pass near the Earth (none on track to hit us, happily). It’s discovered four comets, too, and by the end of the mission in a few months will see far more.
But since it’s a survey instrument, and it sees in the far infrared, the views it gets are nothing short of spectacular! Like this one:

[Click to embiggen, or grab this ginormous 11,000x4000 TIF].
There is a lot to see here! First, the colors: all of this is far infrared, with blue being the IR wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns combined (5 and 6.5 times the wavelength the human eye sees), green is 12 microns, and red 22. Green is dominated by warm dust and big organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
It’s discovered four comets, too, and by the end of the mission in a few months will see far more.
But since it’s a survey instrument, and it sees ...