Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team

What's Old Is New in the Large Magellanic Cloud

This vibrant image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.

The infrared image, a mosaic of 300,000 individual tiles, offers astronomers a unique chance to study the lifecycle of stars and dust in a single galaxy. Nearly one million objects are revealed for the first time in this Spitzer view, which represents about a 1,000-fold improvement in sensitivity over previous space-based missions. Most of the new objects are dusty stars of various ages populating the Large Magellanic Cloud; the rest are thought to be background galaxies.

The blue color in the picture, seen most prominently in the central bar, represents starlight from older stars. The chaotic, bright regions outside this bar are filled with hot, massive stars buried in thick blankets of dust. The red color around these bright regions is from dust heated by stars, while the red dots scattered throughout the picture are either dusty, old stars or more distant galaxies. The greenish clouds contain cooler interstellar gas and molecular-sized dust grains illuminated by ambient starlight.

Astronomers say this image allows them to quantify the process by which space dust -- the same stuff that makes up planets and even people -- is recycled in a galaxy. The picture shows dust at its three main cosmic hangouts: around the young stars, where it is being consumed (red-tinted, bright clouds); scattered about in the space between stars (greenish clouds); and in expelled shells of material from old stars (randomly-spaced red dots).

The Large Magellanic Cloud, located 160,000 light-years from Earth, is one of a handful of dwarf galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way. It is approximately one-third as wide as the Milky Way, and, if it could be seen in its entirety, would cover the same amount of sky as a grid of about 480 full moons. About one-third of the entire galaxy can be seen in the Spitzer image.

This picture is a composite of infrared light captured by Spitzer. Light with wavelengths of 3.6 (blue) and 8 (green) microns was captured by the telescope's infrared array camera; 24-micron light (red) was detected by the multiband imaging photometer.

About the Object	Object Name: Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC Object Type: Galaxy, Irregular/ Spiral Barred Position (J2000): RA: 05h18m48.00s Dec: 68d34m12.00s Distance: 50 kpc, or 163,000 light-years Constellation: Dorado and Mensa
About the Data	Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team Instrument: IRAC + MIPS Wavelength: 3.6 (blue), 8.0 (green), and 24 (red) Exposure Date: IRAC: July 15- 26, 2005, and October 26- November 2, 2005; MIPS: July 27- August 2, 2005, and November 2-9, 2005 Exposure Time: IRAC: 43 seconds (HDR); MIPS: 60, 30 and 6 seconds for 24, 70 and 160 microns respectively Image Scale: 7.36 x 7.36 degrees Orientation: North is 27 deg CW from up Release Date: 2006/08/28
Observers	Margaret Meixner (STScI) Karl D. Gordon (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Arizona) Barbara Whitney (SSI, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) Marilyn Meade (Univ. of Wisconsin) Brian Babler (Univ. of Wisconsin) Remy Indebetouw (Univ. of Virginia) Joseph L. Hora (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) Charles W. Engelbracht (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Bi-Qing For (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Karl Misselt (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Uma Vijh (STScI) Martin Cohen (Univ. of California, Berkeley) Claus Leitherer (STScI) Robert Blum (Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Spain) William Reach (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech) Jean-Philippe Bernard (Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Direction de la Recherche, France) Francois Boulanger (Astrophysique de Pari, Institute, France) Miwa Block (Steweard Observatory) Ed B. Churchwell (Univ. of Wisconsin) Jay A. Frogel (AURA) Yasuo Fukui (Nagoya University, Japan) Jay Gallagher (Univ. of Wisconsin) Varoujan Gorjian (JPL) Jason Harris (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Douglas Kelly (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Akiko Kawamura (Nagoya University, Japan) So Young Kim (Johns Hopkins Univ.) William B. Latter (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech) Suzanne Madden (Service d'Astrophysique CEA, France) Ciska Markwick-Kemper (Univ. of Virgina) Akira Mizuno (Nagoya University, Japan) Norikazu Mizuno (Nagoya University, Japan) Jeremy Mould (NOAO) Antonella Nota (STScI) M.S. Oey (University of Michigan) Knut Olsen (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Toshikazu Onishi (Nagoya University, Japan) Roberta Paladini (Univ. of California, Berkeley) Nino Panagia (STScI) Pablo Perez- Gonzalez (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.) Hiroshi Shibai (Nagoya University, Japan) Shuji Sato (Nagoya University, Japan) Marta Sewilo (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) Linda Smith (University College London) Lister Staveley-Smith (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia) A.G.G.M. Tielens (NASA AMES Research Center) Toshiya Ueta (URSA/NASA Ames Research Center) Schuyler Van Dyk (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech) Kevin Volk (Gemini Observatory) Michael Werner (JPL) Dennis Zaritsky (Steward Observatory, Univ. of Ariz.)

Individual Images

	Better-resolution image Screen-Resolution (450x450): JPEG High-Resolution (6000x6000): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team
	Full-resolution (59 MB) image Screen-Resolution (450x450): JPEG High-Resolution (13250x13250): JPEG | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team

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