NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured these infrared images of the "Whirlpool Galaxy," revealing strange structures bridging the gaps between the dust-rich spiral arms, and tracing the dust, gas and stellar populations in both the bright spiral galaxy and its companion. The Spitzer image is a four-color composite of invisible light, showing emissions from wavelengths of microns (blue), microns (green), microns (orange) and microns (red). These wavelengths are roughly 10 times longer than those seen by the human eye. The visible light image comes from the Kitt Peak Natio
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured these infrared images of the "Whirlpool Galaxy," revealing strange structures bridging the gaps between the dust-rich spiral arms, and tracing the dust, gas and stellar populations in both the bright spiral galaxy and its companion. The Spitzer image is a four-color composite of invisible light, showing emissions from wavelengths of microns (blue), microns (green), microns (orange) and microns (red). These wavelengths are roughly 10 times longer than those seen by the human eye. The visible light image comes from the Kitt Peak National Observatory telescope, and has the same orientation and size as the Spitzer infrared image, measuring by arcminutes (north up). Also a four-color composite, the visible light image shows emissions from to microns, including the H-alpha nebular feature (red in the image). The light seen in the images originates from very different sources. At shorter wavelengths (in the visible bands, and in the infrared from to microns), the light comes mainly from stars. This starlight fades at longer wavelengths ( to microns), where we see the glow from clouds of interstellar dust. This dust consists mainly of a variety of carbon-based organic molecules known collectively as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Wherever these compounds are found, there will also be dust granules and gas, which provide a reservoir of raw materials for future star formation. Particularly puzzling are the large number of thin filaments of red emission seen in the infrared data between the arms of the large spiral galaxy. In contrast to the beady nature of the dust emission seen in the arms themselves, these spoke-like features are thin and regular, and prevalent in the gaps all over the face of the galaxy. Also of interest is the contrast in the distributions of dust and stars between the spiral and its faint companion. While the spiral is rich in dust, bright in the long
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