Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC, Irregular Galaxy
Image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Large Magellanic Cloud. The infrared image, a mosaic of 300,000 individual tiles, offers astronomers a unique chance to study the lifecycle of stars and dust in a single galaxy. Nearly one million objects are revealed for the first time in this Spitzer view, which represents about a 1,000-fold improvement in sensitivity over previous space-based missions. Most of the new objects are dusty stars of various ages populating the Large Magellanic Cloud; the rest are thought to be background galaxies. The blue color in the picture, seen most prominently in the central bar, represents starlight from older stars. The chaotic, bright regions outside this bar are filled with hot, massive stars buried in thick blankets of dust. The red color around these bright regions is from dust heated by stars, while the red dots scattered throughout the picture are either dusty, old stars or more distant galaxies. The greenish clouds contain cooler interstellar gas and molecular-sized dust grains illuminated by ambient starlight.
Size: 3240px × 3240px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: array, astronomical, astronomy, body, camera, celestial, cloud, deep, galaxies, galaxy, heavenly, image, imaging, infrared, irac, irregular, large, lmc, magellanic, mips, mission, multiband, object, photometer, science, sky, solar, space, spitzer, sst, star, system, telescope
