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This color image is a simulation of the faint mid-infrared sky as it may appear to WIRE. The image was constructed from simulations of 25 micron and 12 micron WIRE images of a field located near the North Galactic Pole. The field is approximately 0.5 degrees on each side, and over 200 objects are visible. Stars are the blue objects, and galaxies, most of which are undergoing a burst of star formation, range from green to red. (The colors of the brightest objects are distorted because we cannot fully represent the dynamic range of the WIRE data in this rendering.) The red galaxies tend to be the most luminous and distant ones. The redshift distribution of galaxies in the image peaks near z=0.5, and our model assumes that the galaxy population is weakly evolving with lookback time. The brightest galaxy near the lower right corner has a 25 micron flux density of 87 mJy. The faintest discrete sources visible have 25 micron flux densities less than 0.5 mJy. The lumpy red background is the confusion noise caused by multitudes of still fainter overlapping galaxies. |
