NGC 292, Small Magellanic Cloud, SMC, Irregular Dwarf Galaxy
Infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's SST, reveals the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. Image shows the main body of the SMC, which is comprised of the "bar" on the left and a "wing" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. In addition, the image contains a galactic globular cluster in the lower left (blue cluster of stars) and emission from dust in our own galaxy (green in the upper right and lower right corners). The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. This image was captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. The blue color mainly traces old stars. The green color traces emission from organic dust grains (mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). The red traces emission from larger, cooler dust grains.
Size: 3450px × 3105px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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