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APOLLO 16MM ONBOARD SELECT V …
This program contains select …
4/14/04
Description This program contains selected views taken from the Apollo 16mm onboards edited together and set to inspirational music. Footage from all Apollo missions, Apollo-Saturn 202 through Apollo 17, is used. Includes: stage separation, spacecraft rendezvous, various in-cabin crew scenes from spacecraft operations to leisure activities, Extravehicular Activity (EVA) views, full Earth and Moon views with close up views of the Moon, Earth rise over Moon horizon, Lunar Module (LM) descent, scenes from various EVAs on the Lunar surface, scenes taken during Command Module (CM) reentry including views of the main parachutes as CM makes final descent, views of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) and Lunar Module (LM), and a nice view of the planting of the American flag.
Date 4/14/04
APOLLO 16MM ONBOARD SELECT V …
This program contains select …
5/11/04
Description This program contains selected views taken from the Apollo 16mm onboards edited together and set to inspirational music. Footage from all Apollo missions, Apollo-Saturn 202 through Apollo 17, is used. Includes: stage separation, spacecraft rendezvous, various in-cabin crew scenes from spacecraft operations to leisure activities, Extravehicular Activity (EVA) views, transposition views, Earth rise over Moon horizon, lunar landscape, Lunar Module (LM) descent, scenes from various EVAs on the Lunar surface including planting the American flag, views of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), and scenes taken during Command Module (CM) reentry including views of the main parachutes as CM makes final descent.
Date 5/11/04
Mars on Earth II
In this second installment o …
6/15/04
Spitzer's Delicate Ring Flow …
Title Spitzer's Delicate Ring Flower
Description NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope finds a delicate flower in the Ring Nebula, as shown in this animation. The outer shell of this planetary nebula looks surprisingly similar to the delicate petals of a camellia blossom. A planetary nebula is a shell of material ejected from a dying star. Located about 2,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, the Ring Nebula is also known as Messier Object 57 and NGC 6720. It is one of the best examples of a planetary nebula and a favorite target of amateur astronomers. The "ring" is a thick cylinder of glowing gas and dust around the doomed star. As the star begins to run out of fuel, its core becomes smaller and hotter, boiling off its outer layers. Spitzer's infrared array camera detected this material expelled from the withering star. Previous images of the Ring Nebula taken by visible-light telescopes usually showed just the inner glowing loop of gas around the star. The outer regions are especially prominent in this new image because Spitzer sees the infrared light from hydrogen molecules. The molecules emit infrared light because they have absorbed ultraviolet radiation from the star or have been heated by the wind from the star.
A Bubble Bursts
Title A Bubble Bursts
Description RCW 79 is seen in the southern Milky Way, 17,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. The bubble is 70-light years in diameter, and probably took about one million years to form from the radiation and winds of hot young stars. The balloon of gas and dust is an example of stimulated star formation. Such stars are born when the hot bubble expands into the interstellar gas and dust around it. RCW 79 has spawned at least two groups of new stars along the edge of the large bubble. Some are visible inside the small bubble in the lower left corner. Another group of baby stars appears near the opening at the top. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope easily detects infrared light from the dust particles in RCW 79. The young stars within RCW79 radiate ultraviolet light that excites molecules of dust within the bubble. This causes the dust grains to emit infrared light that is detected by Spitzer and seen here as the extended red features.
Ring Beholds a Delicate Flow …
Title Ring Beholds a Delicate Flower
Description NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope finds a delicate flower in the Ring Nebula, as shown in this image. The outer shell of this planetary nebula looks surprisingly similar to the delicate petals of a camellia blossom. A planetary nebula is a shell of material ejected from a dying star. Located about 2,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, the Ring Nebula is also known as Messier Object 57 and NGC 6720. It is one of the best examples of a planetary nebula and a favorite target of amateur astronomers. The "ring" is a thick cylinder of glowing gas and dust around the doomed star. As the star begins to run out of fuel, its core becomes smaller and hotter, boiling off its outer layers. The telescope's infrared array camera detected this material expelled from the withering star. Previous images of the Ring Nebula taken by visible-light telescopes usually showed just the inner glowing loop of gas around the star. The outer regions are especially prominent in this new image because Spitzer sees the infrared light from hydrogen molecules. The molecules emit infrared light because they have absorbed ultraviolet radiation from the star or have been heated by the wind from the star.
Dead Star Rumbles
Title Dead Star Rumbles
Description This Spitzer Space Telescope composite shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (white ball) and surrounding clouds of dust (gray, orange and blue). It consists of two processed images taken one year apart. Dust features that have not changed over time appear gray, while those that have changed are colored blue or orange. Blue represents an earlier time and orange, a later time. These observations illustrate that a blast of light from Cassiopeia A is waltzing outward through the dusty skies. This dance, called an "infrared echo," began when the remnant erupted about 50 years ago. Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a once massive star that died in a violent supernova explosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of material that was blasted off as the star died. This remnant is located 10,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. An infrared echo is created when a star explodes or erupts, flashing light into surrounding clumps of dust. As the light zips through the dust clumps, it heats them up, causing them to glow successively in infrared, like a chain of Christmas bulbs lighting up one by one. The result is an optical illusion, in which the dust appears to be flying outward at the speed of light. This apparent motion can be seen here by the shift in colored dust clumps. Echoes are distinct from supernova shockwaves, which are made up material that is swept up and hurled outward by exploding stars. This infrared echo is the largest ever seen, stretching more than 50 light-years away from Cassiopeia A. If viewed from Earth, the entire movie frame would take up the same amount of space as two full moons. Hints of an older infrared echo from Cassiopeia A's supernova explosion hundreds of years ago can also be seen. The earlier Spitzer image was taken on November 30, 2003, and the later, on December 2, 2004.
A More Spectacular Sombrero …
Title A More Spectacular Sombrero (Widescreen Version)
Description This movie shifts from the well-known visible-light picture of Messier 104 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to infrared views from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." Viewed from Earth, the spiral galaxy is seen nearly edge-on, just six degrees away from its equatorial plane. 50,000 light-years across, the Sombrero galaxy is considered one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is located 28 million light-years away, hosts a rich system of nearly 2,000 globular clusters and may harbor a super-massive black hole. In Hubble's visible light image, only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, pierced through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Galaxies Gather at Great Dis …
Title Galaxies Gather at Great Distances
Description Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups, including almost 100 located 8 to 10 billion light-years away, using the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The new sample represents a six-fold increase in the number of known galaxy clusters and groups at such extreme distances, and will allow astronomers to systematically study massive galaxies two-thirds of the way back to the Big Bang. A mosaic portraying a bird's eye view of the field in which the distant clusters were found is shown at upper left. It spans a region of sky 40 times larger than that covered by the full moon as seen from Earth. Thousands of individual images from Spitzer's infrared array camera instrument were stitched together to create this mosaic. The distant clusters are marked with orange dots. Close-up images of three of the distant galaxy clusters are shown in the adjoining panels. The clusters appear as a concentration of red dots near the center of each image. These images reveal the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes. These pictures are false-color composites, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns. Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
A More Spectacular Sombrero
Title A More Spectacular Sombrero
Description This movie shifts from the well-known visible-light picture of Messier 104 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to infrared views from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." Viewed from Earth, the spiral galaxy is seen nearly edge-on, just six degrees away from its equatorial plane. 50,000 light-years across, the Sombrero galaxy is considered one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is located 28 million light-years away, hosts a rich system of nearly 2,000 globular clusters and may harbor a super-massive black hole. In Hubble's visible light image, only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, pierced through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
A Year in the Life of an Inf …
Title A Year in the Life of an Infrared Echo
Description These Spitzer Space Telescope images, taken one year apart, show the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (yellow ball) and surrounding clouds of dust (reddish orange). The pictures illustrate that a blast of light from Cassiopeia A is waltzing outward through the dusty skies. This dance, called an "infrared echo," began when the remnant erupted about 50 years ago. Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a once massive star that died in a violent supernova explosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of material that was blasted off as the star died. This remnant is located 10,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. Infrared echoes are created when a star explodes or erupts, flashing light into surrounding clumps of dust. As the light zips through the dust clumps, it heats them up, causing them to glow successively in infrared, like a chain of Christmas bulbs lighting up one by one. The result is an optical illusion, in which the dust appears to be flying outward at the speed of light. Echoes are distinct from supernova shockwaves, which are made up material that is swept up and hurled outward by exploding stars. This infrared echo is the largest ever seen, stretching more than 50 light-years away from Cassiopeia A. If viewed from Earth, the entire movie frame would take up the same amount of space as two full moons. Hints of an older infrared echo from Cassiopeia A's supernova explosion hundreds of years ago can also be seen. The top Spitzer image was taken on November 30, 2003, and the bottom, on December 2, 2004.
Dwarf Galaxies Swimming in T …
Title Dwarf Galaxies Swimming in Tidal Tails
Description This false-color infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows little "dwarf galaxies" forming in the "tails" of two larger galaxies that are colliding together. The big galaxies are at the center of the picture, while the dwarfs can be seen as red dots in the red streamers, or tidal tails. The two blue dots above the big galaxies are stars in the foreground. Galaxy mergers are common occurrences in the universe, for example, our own Milky Way galaxy will eventually smash into the nearby Andromeda galaxy. When two galaxies meet, they tend to rip each other apart, leaving a trail, called a tidal tail, of gas and dust in their wake. It is out of this galactic debris that new dwarf galaxies are born. The new Spitzer picture demonstrates that these particular dwarfs are actively forming stars. The red color indicates the presence of dust produced in star-forming regions, including organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. PAHs are also found on Earth, in car exhaust and on burnt toast, among other places. Here, the PAHs are being heated up by the young stars, and, as a result, shine in infrared light. This image was taken by the infrared array camera on Spitzer. It is a 4-color composite of infrared light, showing emissions from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), and 8.0 microns (red). Starlight has been subtracted from the orange and red channels in order to enhance the dust, or PAH, features.
The Cry of Cassiopeia A
Title The Cry of Cassiopeia A
Description This animation begins with a stunning false-color picture of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. It is made up of images taken by three of NASA's Great Observatories, using three different wavebands of light. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are colored red, visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope are yellow, and X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are green and blue. Located 10,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Cassiopeia, Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a once massive star that died in a violent supernova explosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of material that was blasted off as the star died. The neutron star can be seen in the Chandra data as a sharp turquoise dot in the center of the shimmering shell. The movie then pans out to show a Spitzer view of Cassiopeia A (yellow ball) and surrounding clouds of dust (reddish orange). Here, the animation flips back and forth between two Spitzer images taken one year apart. A blast of light from Cassiopeia A is seen waltzing through the dusty skies. Called an "infrared echo," this dance began when the remnant's dead star erupted, or "turned in its grave," about 50 years ago. Infrared echoes are created when a star explodes or erupts, flashing light into surrounding clumps of dust. As the light zips through the dust clumps, it heats them up, causing them to glow successively in infrared, like a chain of Christmas bulbs lighting up one by one. The result is an optical illusion, in which the dust appears to be flying outward at the speed of light. Echoes are distinct from supernova shockwaves, which are made up material that is swept up and hurled outward by exploding stars. This infrared echo is the largest ever seen, stretching more than 50 light-years away from Cassiopeia A. If viewed from Earth, the entire movie frame would take up the same amount of space as two full moons. Hints of an older infrared echo from Cassiopeia A's supernova explosion hundreds of years ago can also be seen. The earlier Spitzer image was taken on November 30, 2003, and the later, on December 2, 2004.
A Cauldron of Stars at the G …
Title A Cauldron of Stars at the Galaxy's Center
Description This dazzling infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy. In visible-light pictures, this region cannot be seen at all because dust lying between Earth and the galactic center blocks our view. In this false-color picture, old and cool stars are blue, while dust features lit up by blazing hot, massive stars are shown in a reddish hue. Both bright and dark filamentary clouds can be seen, many of which harbor stellar nurseries. The plane of the Milky Way's flat disk is apparent as the main, horizontal band of clouds. The brightest white spot in the middle is the very center of the galaxy, which also marks the site of a supermassive black hole. The region pictured here is immense, with a horizontal span of 890 light-years and a vertical span of 640 light-years. Earth is located 26,000 light-years away, out in one of the Milky Way's spiral arms. Though most of the objects seen in this image are located at the galactic center, the features above and below the galactic plane tend to lie closer to Earth. Scientists are intrigued by the giant lobes of dust extending away from the plane of the galaxy. They believe the lobes may have been formed by winds from massive stars. This image is a mosaic of thousands of short exposures taken by Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), showing emissions from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), and 8.0 microns (red). The entire region was imaged in less than 16 hours.
A Cauldron of Stars at the G …
Title A Cauldron of Stars at the Galaxy's Center
Description This dazzling infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy. In visible-light pictures, this region cannot be seen at all because dust lying between Earth and the galactic center blocks our view. In this false-color picture, old and cool stars are blue, while dust features lit up by blazing hot, massive stars are shown in a reddish hue. Both bright and dark filamentary clouds can be seen, many of which harbor stellar nurseries. The plane of the Milky Way's flat disk is apparent as the main, horizontal band of clouds. The brightest white spot in the middle is the very center of the galaxy, which also marks the site of a supermassive black hole. The region pictured here is immense, with a horizontal span of 890 light-years and a vertical span of 640 light-years. Earth is located 26,000 light-years away, out in one of the Milky Way's spiral arms. Though most of the objects seen in this image are located at the galactic center, the features above and below the galactic plane tend to lie closer to Earth. Scientists are intrigued by the giant lobes of dust extending away from the plane of the galaxy. They believe the lobes may have been formed by winds from massive stars. This image is a mosaic of thousands of short exposures taken by Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), showing emissions from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), and 8.0 microns (red). The entire region was imaged in less than 16 hours.
Chaotic Star Birth
Title Chaotic Star Birth
Description Located 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus, a reflection nebula called NGC 1333 epitomizes the beautiful chaos of a dense group of stars being born. Most of the visible light from the young stars in this region is obscured by the dense, dusty cloud in which they formed. With NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists can detect the infrared light from these objects. This allows a look through the dust to gain a more detailed understanding of how stars like our sun begin their lives. The young stars in NGC 1333 do not form a single cluster, but are split between two sub-groups. One group is to the north near the nebula shown as red in the image. The other group is south, where the features shown in yellow and green abound in the densest part of the natal gas cloud. With the sharp infrared eyes of Spitzer, scientists can detect and characterize the warm and dusty disks of material that surround forming stars. By looking for differences in the disk properties between the two subgroups, they hope to find hints of the star- and planet-formation history of this region. The knotty yellow-green features located in the lower portion of the image are glowing shock fronts where jets of material, spewed from extremely young embryonic stars, are plowing into the cold, dense gas nearby. The sheer number of separate jets that appear in this region is unprecedented. This leads scientists to believe that by stirring up the cold gas, the jets may contribute to the eventual dispersal of the gas cloud, preventing more stars from forming in NGC 1333. In contrast, the upper portion of the image is dominated by the infrared light from warm dust, shown as red.
Chaotic Star Birth
Title Chaotic Star Birth
Description Located 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus, a reflection nebula called NGC 1333 epitomizes the beautiful chaos of a dense group of stars being born. Most of the visible light from the young stars in this region is obscured by the dense, dusty cloud in which they formed. With NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists can detect the infrared light from these objects. This allows a look through the dust to gain a more detailed understanding of how stars like our sun begin their lives. The young stars in NGC 1333 do not form a single cluster, but are split between two sub-groups. One group is to the north near the nebula shown as red in the image. The other group is south, where the features shown in yellow and green abound in the densest part of the natal gas cloud. With the sharp infrared eyes of Spitzer, scientists can detect and characterize the warm and dusty disks of material that surround forming stars. By looking for differences in the disk properties between the two subgroups, they hope to find hints of the star- and planet-formation history of this region. The knotty yellow-green features located in the lower portion of the image are glowing shock fronts where jets of material, spewed from extremely young embryonic stars, are plowing into the cold, dense gas nearby. The sheer number of separate jets that appear in this region is unprecedented. This leads scientists to believe that by stirring up the cold gas, the jets may contribute to the eventual dispersal of the gas cloud, preventing more stars from forming in NGC 1333. In contrast, the upper portion of the image is dominated by the infrared light from warm dust, shown as red.
Luminous Blue Variable: Dest …
Title Luminous Blue Variable: Destined To Be a Supernova?
Description A Luminous Blue Variable star (inset) in our galaxy, named HD168625, surrounded by a bipolar nebula that is similar to the one around SN1987A. SN1987A was a supernova that exploded in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and was the nearest supernova in about 400 years. The diagram explains the bipolar nebula around HD168625, which has a geometry that makes it a near twin of the famous nebula around SN1987A. Rings near the equator are sometimes seen around stars that shed mass from their surfaces, but the larger rings above the poles are very rare. Tipped toward Earth and illuminated by the star, the rings look like ellipses in images taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The image was taken in 2004 by the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope at wavelengths between 3.6 and 8 microns. The massive star at the center, which lies within the constellation Sagittarius, is about 7,200 light-years from Earth.
Luminous Blue Variable: Dest …
Title Luminous Blue Variable: Destined To Be a Supernova?
Description A Luminous Blue Variable star (inset) in our galaxy, named HD168625, surrounded by a bipolar nebula that is similar to the one around SN1987A. SN1987A was a supernova that exploded in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and was the nearest supernova in about 400 years. The diagram explains the bipolar nebula around HD168625, which has a geometry that makes it a near twin of the famous nebula around SN1987A. Rings near the equator are sometimes seen around stars that shed mass from their surfaces, but the larger rings above the poles are very rare. Tipped toward Earth and illuminated by the star, the rings look like ellipses in images taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The image was taken in 2004 by the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope at wavelengths between 3.6 and 8 microns. The massive star at the center, which lies within the constellation Sagittarius, is about 7,200 light-years from Earth.
Luminous Blue Variable: Dest …
Title Luminous Blue Variable: Destined To Be a Supernova?
Description A Luminous Blue Variable star (inset) in our galaxy, named HD168625, surrounded by a bipolar nebula that is similar to the one around SN1987A. SN1987A was a supernova that exploded in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and was the nearest supernova in about 400 years. The diagram explains the bipolar nebula around HD168625, which has a geometry that makes it a near twin of the famous nebula around SN1987A. Rings near the equator are sometimes seen around stars that shed mass from their surfaces, but the larger rings above the poles are very rare. Tipped toward Earth and illuminated by the star, the rings look like ellipses in images taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The image was taken in 2004 by the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope at wavelengths between 3.6 and 8 microns. The massive star at the center, which lies within the constellation Sagittarius, is about 7,200 light-years from Earth.
Seeing Stars in Serpens
Title Seeing Stars in Serpens
Description Infant stars are glowing gloriously in this infrared image of the Serpens star-forming region, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The reddish-pink dots are baby stars deeply embedded in the cosmic cloud of gas and dust that collapsed to create it. A dusty disk of cosmic debris, or "protoplanetary disk," that may eventually form planets, surrounds the infant stars. Wisps of green throughout the image indicate the presence of carbon rich molecules called, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). On Earth, PAHs can be found on charred barbecue grills and in automobile exhaust. Blue specks sprinkled throughout the image are background stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. The Serpens star-forming region is located approximately 848 light-years away in the Serpens constellation. The image is a three-channel false-color composite, where emission at 4.5 microns is blue, emission at 8.0 microns is green, and 24 micron emission is red.
The Mark of a Dying Star
Title The Mark of a Dying Star
Description Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns.
The Mark of a Dying Star
Title The Mark of a Dying Star
Description Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns.
The Milky Way Center Aglow w …
Title The Milky Way Center Aglow with Dust
Description Our Milky Way is a dusty place. So dusty, in fact, that we cannot see the center of the galaxy in visible light. But when NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its infrared eyes on the galactic center, it captured this spectacular view. Taken with just one of Spitzer's cameras (at a wavelength of 8 microns), the image highlights the region's exceptionally bright and dusty clouds, lit up by young massive stars. Individual stars can also be seen as tiny dots scattered throughout the dust. The top mosaic shows a portion of the galactic center that stretches across a distance of 760 light-years. Thanks to Spitzer's excellent resolution, the dusty features within the galactic center are seen in unprecedented detail. Four examples are shown in the magnified insets at the bottom. The farthest left box shows a pair of star-forming regions resembling owl-like cosmic eyes. To the left of the "eyes," dark lanes of dust can be seen. This object is probably located in a spiral arm between Earth and the galactic center, in contrast to the following examples, which are all located at the galactic center. The next inset to the right includes the extremely luminous "Quintuplet" stars, a set of five massive stars believed to have buried themselves in cocoons of dust. Just below and to the right of the Quintuplet is the "Pistol" nebula, a bubble of ejected material from the central, massive Pistol star. The finger-like pillars to the left are part of a structure known as "Sickle." They are similar in size and shape to those in the famous picture of the Eagle Nebula taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Pillars like these are sculpted out of dense dust clouds by radiation and winds from hot stars. The pillars in the Sickle were likely to have been formed by a cluster of hot stars located to their right but not readily visible here. The third inset highlights a system of long, stringy structures that are seen for the first time near the base of a region known as the "Arched Filaments." These long filaments are about 10 light-years long and less than 1 light-year wide. The bright star-forming regions to the right are some of the brightest in the infrared sky. The final inset to the right shows the center of our galaxy, which is the brightest spot in the entire mosaic. The brightness is a result of dust being heated up by a compact cluster of hot stars. The bright spot also marks the location of a supermassive black hole, around which a rotating ring of gas and dust known as the circumnuclear disk can be seen. This image was taken with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), using its 8-micron detector. It shows emissions from heated-up molecules in dust clouds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The Milky Way Center Aglow w …
Title The Milky Way Center Aglow with Dust
Description Our Milky Way is a dusty place. So dusty, in fact, that we cannot see the center of the galaxy in visible light. But when NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its infrared eyes on the galactic center, it captured this spectacular view. Taken with just one of Spitzer's cameras (at a wavelength of 8 microns), the image highlights the region's exceptionally bright and dusty clouds, lit up by young massive stars. Individual stars can also be seen as tiny dots scattered throughout the dust. The top mosaic shows a portion of the galactic center that stretches across a distance of 760 light-years. Thanks to Spitzer's excellent resolution, the dusty features within the galactic center are seen in unprecedented detail. Four examples are shown in the magnified insets at the bottom. The farthest left box shows a pair of star-forming regions resembling owl-like cosmic eyes. To the left of the "eyes," dark lanes of dust can be seen. This object is probably located in a spiral arm between Earth and the galactic center, in contrast to the following examples, which are all located at the galactic center. The next inset to the right includes the extremely luminous "Quintuplet" stars, a set of five massive stars believed to have buried themselves in cocoons of dust. Just below and to the right of the Quintuplet is the "Pistol" nebula, a bubble of ejected material from the central, massive Pistol star. The finger-like pillars to the left are part of a structure known as "Sickle." They are similar in size and shape to those in the famous picture of the Eagle Nebula taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Pillars like these are sculpted out of dense dust clouds by radiation and winds from hot stars. The pillars in the Sickle were likely to have been formed by a cluster of hot stars located to their right but not readily visible here. The third inset highlights a system of long, stringy structures that are seen for the first time near the base of a region known as the "Arched Filaments." These long filaments are about 10 light-years long and less than 1 light-year wide. The bright star-forming regions to the right are some of the brightest in the infrared sky. The final inset to the right shows the center of our galaxy, which is the brightest spot in the entire mosaic. The brightness is a result of dust being heated up by a compact cluster of hot stars. The bright spot also marks the location of a supermassive black hole, around which a rotating ring of gas and dust known as the circumnuclear disk can be seen. This image was taken with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), using its 8-micron detector. It shows emissions from heated-up molecules in dust clouds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Orion's Inner Beauty
Title Orion's Inner Beauty
Description This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, 1,450 light-years from Earth. The nebula is close enough to appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the popular hunter constellation. The nebula itself is located on the lower half of the image, surrounded by a ring of dust. It formed in a cold cloud of gas and dust and contains about 1,000 young stars. These stars illuminate the cloud, creating the beautiful nebulosity, or swirls of material, seen here in infrared. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns (red and orange) comes mainly from dust that has been heated by starlight. Light of 4.5 microns (green) shows hot gas and dust, and light of 3.6 microns (blue) is from starlight.
The Sword of Orion
Title The Sword of Orion
Description This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, 1,450 light-years from Earth. The nebula is close enough to appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the popular hunter constellation. The nebula itself is located on the lower half of the image, surrounded by a ring of dust. It formed in a cold cloud of gas and dust and contains about 1,000 young stars. These stars illuminate the cloud, creating the beautiful nebulosity, or swirls of material, seen here in infrared. In the center of the nebula (bottom inset) are four monstrously massive stars, up to 100,000 times as luminous as our sun, called the Trapezium (tiny yellow smudge to the lower left of green splotches). Radiation and winds from these stars are blasting gas and dust away, excavating a cavity walled in by the large ring of dust. Behind the Trapezium, still buried deeply in the cloud, a second generation of massive stars is forming (in the area with green splotches). The speckled green fuzz in this bright region is created when bullets of gas shoot out from the juvenile stars and ram into the surrounding cloud. Above this region of intense activity are networks of cold material that appear as dark veins against the pinkish nebulosity (upper inset). These dark veins contain embryonic stars. Some of the natal stars illuminate the cloud, creating small, aqua-colored wisps. In addition, jets of gas from the stars ram into the cloud, resulting in the green horseshoe-shaped globs. Spitzer surveyed a significant swath of the Orion constellation, beyond what is highlighted in this image. Within that region, called the Orion cloud complex, the telescope found 2,300 stars circled by disks of planet-forming dust and 200 stellar embryos too young to have developed disks. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns (red and orange) comes mainly from dust that has been heated by starlight. Light of 4.5 microns (green) shows hot gas and dust, and light of 3.6 microns (blue) is from starlight.
The Sword of Orion
Title The Sword of Orion
Description This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, 1,450 light-years from Earth. The nebula is close enough to appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the popular hunter constellation. The nebula itself is located on the lower half of the image, surrounded by a ring of dust. It formed in a cold cloud of gas and dust and contains about 1,000 young stars. These stars illuminate the cloud, creating the beautiful nebulosity, or swirls of material, seen here in infrared. In the center of the nebula (bottom inset) are four monstrously massive stars, up to 100,000 times as luminous as our sun, called the Trapezium (tiny yellow smudge to the lower left of green splotches). Radiation and winds from these stars are blasting gas and dust away, excavating a cavity walled in by the large ring of dust. Behind the Trapezium, still buried deeply in the cloud, a second generation of massive stars is forming (in the area with green splotches). The speckled green fuzz in this bright region is created when bullets of gas shoot out from the juvenile stars and ram into the surrounding cloud. Above this region of intense activity are networks of cold material that appear as dark veins against the pinkish nebulosity (upper inset). These dark veins contain embryonic stars. Some of the natal stars illuminate the cloud, creating small, aqua-colored wisps. In addition, jets of gas from the stars ram into the cloud, resulting in the green horseshoe-shaped globs. Spitzer surveyed a significant swath of the Orion constellation, beyond what is highlighted in this image. Within that region, called the Orion cloud complex, the telescope found 2,300 stars circled by disks of planet-forming dust and 200 stellar embryos too young to have developed disks. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns (red and orange) comes mainly from dust that has been heated by starlight. Light of 4.5 microns (green) shows hot gas and dust, and light of 3.6 microns (blue) is from starlight.
The Seven Sisters Pose for S …
Title The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer
Description The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red.
The Seven Sisters Pose for S …
Title The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer
Description The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red.
A Parallelogram-Shaped Meal
Title A Parallelogram-Shaped Meal
Description This image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows in unprecedented detail the galaxy Centaurus A's last big meal: a spiral galaxy seemingly twisted into a parallelogram-shaped structure of dust. An elliptical galaxy located 10 million light-years from Earth, Centaurus A is one of the brightest sources of radio waves in the sky. These radio waves indicate the presence of a supermassive black hole, which may be "feeding" off the leftover galactic meal. This spectacular image combines 5.8 micron and 8.0 micron data obtained by an infrared array camera aboard Spitzer. These wavelengths emphasize the emission from dust rather than the light produced by stars in the galaxy. The resulting image shows with greater clarity the strange parallelogram-shaped feature embedded near the center of the galaxy. Scientists have created a model that explains how such a strangely geometric structure could arise. In this model, a spiral galaxy falls into an elliptical galaxy, becoming warped and twisted in the process. The folds in the warped disc create the parallelogram-shaped illusion.
Pink Pleiades
Title Pink Pleiades
Description The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue.
Pink Pleiades
Title Pink Pleiades
Description The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue.
A Parallelogram-Shaped Meal
Title A Parallelogram-Shaped Meal
Description This image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows in unprecedented detail the galaxy Centaurus A's last big meal: a spiral galaxy seemingly twisted into a parallelogram-shaped structure of dust. Spitzer's ability to see dust and also see through it allowed the telescope to peer into the center of Centaurus A and capture this galactic remnant as never before. An elliptical galaxy located 10 million light-years from Earth, Centaurus A is one of the brightest sources of radio waves in the sky. These radio waves indicate the presence of a supermassive black hole, which may be "feeding" off the leftover galactic meal. A high-speed jet of gas can be seen shooting above the plane of the galaxy (the faint, fuzzy feature pointing from the center toward the upper left). Jets are a common feature of galaxies, and this one is probably receiving an extra boost from the galactic remnant. Scientists have created a model that explains how such a strangely geometric structure could arise. In this model, a spiral galaxy falls into an elliptical galaxy, becoming warped and twisted in the process. The folds in the warped disc create the parallelogram-shaped illusion.
Galactic Fossil Revealed in …
Title Galactic Fossil Revealed in Infrared Light
Description This animation demonstrates the power of infrared light to see what visible light cannot -- a newfound bundle of stars called a globular cluster. The movie shifts from a visible-light image to a near-infrared image to a new mid-infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The visible-light image is from the California Institute of Technology's Digitized Sky Survey and the near-infrared image is from the NASA-funded Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). Globular clusters date back to the birth of our galaxy, 13 or so billion years ago. There are about 150 clusters sprinkled around the core of the galaxy like seeds in a pumpkin. Astronomers use these galactic "fossils" as tools for studying the age and formation of the Milky Way. Most clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy well above its dust-enshrouded disc, or plane, while making brief, repeated passes through the plane that each last about a million years. Spitzer, with infrared eyes that can see into the dusty galactic plane, first spotted the newfound cluster during its current pass. Astronomers then searched for past references to the cluster and found only one undocumented image from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. Follow-up observations with the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory helped set the distance of the new cluster at about 9,000 light-years from Earth -- closer than most clusters -- and set the mass at the equivalent of 300,000 Suns. The cluster's apparent size, as viewed from Earth, is comparable to a grain of rice held at arm's length. It is located in the constellation Aquila. Astronomers believe that this cluster may be one of the last in our galaxy to be uncovered. The Two Micron All-Sky Survey false-color image was obtained using near-infrared wavelengths ranging from 1.3 to 2.2 microns. The Spitzer false-color image composite was taken on April 21, 2004, by its infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four mid-infrared wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red). The true-color image from the Digitized Sky Survey was acquired with red and blue filters.
Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fos …
Title Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fossil
Description This false-color image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a globular cluster previously hidden in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Globular clusters are compact bundles of old stars that date back to the birth of our galaxy, 13 or so billion years ago. Astronomers use these galactic "fossils" as tools for studying the age and formation of the Milky Way. Most clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy well above its dust-enshrouded disc, or plane, while making brief, repeated passes through the plane that each last about a million years. Spitzer, with infrared eyes that can see into the dusty galactic plane, first spotted the newfound cluster during its current pass. A visible-light image (inset) shows only a dark patch of sky. The red streak behind the core of the cluster is a dust cloud, which may indicate the cluster's interaction with the Milky Way. Alternatively, this cloud may lie coincidentally along Spitzer's line of sight. Follow-up observations with the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory helped set the distance of the new cluster at about 9,000 light-years from Earth -- closer than most clusters -- and set the mass at the equivalent of 300,000 Suns. The cluster's apparent size, as viewed from Earth, is comparable to a grain of rice held at arm's length. It is located in the constellation Aquila. Astronomers believe that this cluster may be one of the last in our galaxy to be uncovered. This image composite was taken on April 21, 2004, by Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red). The visible-light image is from the Digitized Sky Survey, California University of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fos …
Title Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fossil
Description This false-color image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a globular cluster previously hidden in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Globular clusters are compact bundles of old stars that date back to the birth of our galaxy, 13 or so billion years ago. Astronomers use these galactic "fossils" as tools for studying the age and formation of the Milky Way. Most clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy well above its dust-enshrouded disc, or plane, while making brief, repeated passes through the plane that each last about a million years. Spitzer, with infrared eyes that can see into the dusty galactic plane, first spotted the newfound cluster during its current pass. A visible-light image (inset) shows only a dark patch of sky. The red streak behind the core of the cluster is a dust cloud, which may indicate the cluster's interaction with the Milky Way. Alternatively, this cloud may lie coincidentally along Spitzer's line of sight. Follow-up observations with the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory helped set the distance of the new cluster at about 9,000 light-years from Earth -- closer than most clusters -- and set the mass at the equivalent of 300,000 Suns. The cluster's apparent size, as viewed from Earth, is comparable to a grain of rice held at arm's length. It is located in the constellation Aquila. Astronomers believe that this cluster may be one of the last in our galaxy to be uncovered. This image composite was taken on April 21, 2004, by Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red). The visible-light image is from the Digitized Sky Survey, California University of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fos …
Title Spitzer Digs Up Galactic Fossil
Description This false-color image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a globular cluster previously hidden in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Globular clusters are compact bundles of old stars that date back to the birth of our galaxy, 13 or so billion years ago. Astronomers use these galactic "fossils" as tools for studying the age and formation of the Milky Way. Most clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy well above its dust-enshrouded disc, or plane, while making brief, repeated passes through the plane that each last about a million years. Spitzer, with infrared eyes that can see into the dusty galactic plane, first spotted the newfound cluster during its current pass. A visible-light image (inset) shows only a dark patch of sky. The red streak behind the core of the cluster is a dust cloud, which may indicate the cluster's interaction with the Milky Way. Alternatively, this cloud may lie coincidentally along Spitzer's line of sight. Follow-up observations with the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory helped set the distance of the new cluster at about 9,000 light-years from Earth -- closer than most clusters -- and set the mass at the equivalent of 300,000 Suns. The cluster's apparent size, as viewed from Earth, is comparable to a grain of rice held at arm's length. It is located in the constellation Aquila. Astronomers believe that this cluster may be one of the last in our galaxy to be uncovered. This image composite was taken on April 21, 2004, by Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red). The visible-light image is from the Digitized Sky Survey, California University of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
Galactic Fossil Found Behind …
Title Galactic Fossil Found Behind Curtain of Dust
Description This image mosaic shows the same patch of sky in various wavelengths of light. While the visible-light image (left) shows a dark sky speckled with stars, infrared images (middle and right), reveal a never-before-seen bundle of stars, called a globular cluster. The left panel is from the California Institute of Technology's Digitized Sky Survey, the middle panel includes images from the NASA-funded Two Micron All-Sky Survey and the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory (circle inset), and the right panel is from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Globular clusters date back to the birth of our galaxy, 13 or so billion years ago. There are about 150 clusters sprinkled around the core of the galaxy like seeds in a pumpkin. Astronomers use these galactic "fossils" as tools for studying the age and formation of the Milky Way. Most clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy well above its dust-enshrouded disc, or plane, while making brief, repeated passes through the plane that each last about a million years. Spitzer, with infrared eyes that can see into the dusty galactic plane, first spotted the newfound cluster during its current pass. Astronomers then searched for past references to the cluster and found only one undocumented image from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. Follow-up observations with the University of Wyoming Infrared Observatory helped set the distance of the new cluster at about 9,000 light-years from Earth -- closer than most clusters -- and set the mass at the equivalent of 300,000 Suns. The cluster's apparent size, as viewed from Earth, is comparable to a grain of rice held at arm's length. It is located in the constellation Aquila. Astronomers believe that this cluster may be one of the last in our galaxy to be uncovered. The Two Micron All-Sky Survey false-color image was obtained using near-infrared wavelengths ranging from 1.3 to 2.2 microns. The University of Wyoming Observatory false-color image was captured on July 31, 2004, at wavelengths ranging from 1.2 to 2.2 microns. The Spitzer false-color image composite was taken on April 21, 2004, by its infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four mid-infrared wavelengths: 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange) and 8 microns (red).
NASA Connect - Personal Sate …
NASA Connect Video containin …
1/22/04
Description NASA Connect Video containing six segments as described below. NASA Connect Segment exploring the aspects of microgravity and how it affects objects in space. Explores object motion and friction and tests the PSA prototype in accordance with these forces. NASA Connect Segment exploring more aspects of the Personal Satellite Assistant. It explains motion and its relationship with the mass of objects in connection to the PSA. NASA Connect Segment explaining mechanical systems. It also compares and contrasts a mechanical system to the system of the International Space Station and Personal Satellite Assistants. NASA Connect Segment explaining the literary origins of robots. It also explores the development of the robot and how scientists use robots in research and technology. NASA Connect Segment exploring the different types of robots. It also explores robots such as the Mars Rover that scientists at NASA use to explore beyond the Earth. NASA Connect Segment involving students in an activity that investigates volume and surface area in two different cylinders. The video also explains basic mathematical functions to help answer the questions.
Date 1/22/04
NASA Connect - The Venus Tra …
NASA Connect Video containin …
3/18/04
Description NASA Connect Video containing six segments as described below. NASA Connect segment explaining how scientists determined the distance between the earth and the sun. The video also explores the geometric technique called parallax. NASA Connect segment involving students in a classroom activity that uses graphing, measurement, and ratios to construct a scaled model of the Solar System. NASA Connect segment exploring what it means to scale and why scientists use scale models and drawings. The video also explores math terms that are associated with scale models and drawings. NASA Connect segment that explores how astronomers and scientists use astronomical units in measuring distances in the Solar System. NASA Connect segment that challenges students to participate in an activity to scale the universe. The video involves students in a proposal to determine a new baseline distance to use for an astronomical unit. NASA Connect segment that explains the Venus Transit and compares it to a solar eclipse.
Date 3/18/04
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