Where does dust collect in galaxies? To help find out, a team of researchers [
http://adsabs.harva…] took the most detailed image ever of gas clouds and dust [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] (LMC) galaxy. The composite image, shown above [
http://www.spitzer.…], was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope [
http://www.spitzer.…] in infrared light [
http://imagers.gsfc…], which highlights the natural glow of the warm materials returned to the interstellar medium [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] by stars. The above mosaic [
http://www.spitzer.…] combines 300,000 individual pointings to create a composite 1,000-times sharper than any previous LMC image. Visible are vast [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] clouds of gas and dust [
http://en.wikipedia…], showing in graphic detail that dust prefers regions near young stars (red-tinted bright clouds), scattered unevenly between the stars (green-tinted clouds), and in shells around old stars (small red dots). Also visible are huge cavern [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]s cleared away by the energetic outflows of massive former stars. The faint blue (false-color) glow across the bottom is the combined light from the old stars in the central bar [
http://www-int.stsc…] of the LMC. The LMC [
http://en.wikipedia…] is a satellite galaxy [
http://www.astro.uu…] to our own Milky Way Galaxy [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], spans about 70,000 light years [
http://chandra.harv…], and lies about 160,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Swordfish [
http://en.wikipedia…] (Dorado [
http://www.astronom…]).
Explanation
Where does dust collect in galaxies? To help find out, a team of researchers [
http://adsabs.harva…] took the most detailed image ever of gas clouds and dust [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] (LMC) galaxy. The composite image, shown above [
http://www.spitzer.…], was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope [
http://www.spitzer.…] in infrared light [
http://imagers.gsfc…], which highlights the natural glow of the warm materials returned to the interstellar medium [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] by stars. The above mosaic [
http://www.spitzer.…] combines 300,000 individual pointings to create a composite 1,000-times sharper than any previous LMC image. Visible are vast [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] clouds of gas and dust [
http://en.wikipedia…], showing in graphic detail that dust prefers regions near young stars (red-tinted bright clouds), scattered unevenly between the stars (green-tinted clouds), and in shells around old stars (small red dots). Also visible are huge cavern [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]s cleared away by the energetic outflows of massive former stars. The faint blue (false-color) glow across the bottom is the combined light from the old stars in the central bar [
http://www-int.stsc…] of the LMC. The LMC [
http://en.wikipedia…] is a satellite galaxy [
http://www.astro.uu…] to our own Milky Way Galaxy [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], spans about 70,000 light years [
http://chandra.harv…], and lies about 160,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Swordfish [
http://en.wikipedia…] (Dorado [
http://www.astronom…]).
Explanation
