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Spitzer Space Telescope

• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• California Institute of Technology
• Vision for Space Exploration

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC)

Fiery First Stars

The top panel is an image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stars and galaxies in the constellation Draco, covering about 50 by 100 million light-years (6 to 12 arcminutes). This is an infrared image showing wavelengths of 3.6 microns, below what the human eye can detect. The bottom panel is the resulting image after all the stars, galaxies and artifacts were masked out. The remaining background has been enhanced to reveal a glow that is not attributed to galaxies or stars. This might be the glow of the first stars in the universe.

To download, choose your preferred resolution and file format below. "High-Resolution" files will always the highest resolution and widest crop available, intended for print. Other resolutions are provided for convenient on-screen viewing.

Screen-Resolution (450x450) JPEG (120 KB)
Medium-Resolution (900x900): JPEG (340 KB)
High-Resolution (1200x1200): JPEG (1.6 MB) | Mac TIFF (1.7 MB) | PC TIFF (1.7 MB)

Individual Images

Spitzer image with foreground cancelled.
Screen-Resolution (450x200): JPEG
High-Resolution (1152x512): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC)

Spitzer image.
Screen-Resolution (450x200): JPEG
High-Resolution (1152x512): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC)

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website is maintained by the Spitzer Science Center, located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology and part of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.