Antennae Galaxies

Composite Image of the Antennae galaxies: Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red).


Credit: NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI

Star Formation Revealed Around M17

As this juxtaposition of visible light (top) and infrared light (bottom) composite images illustrates, there's more to the M17 nebula than meets the eye. The Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared view reveals furious star formation taking place in the dark swath to the right of the well-lit M17 nebula at center.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Penn State/DSS

Orion Nebula

This Spitzer Space Telescope image is of the Orion Nebula. Prominent features include the Trapezium star cluster, home to the hottest stars in the region (center right in the image below), and the dark areas center left are the densest parts of the dust cloud that is being shaped by the radiation and winds created by these young, energetic stars.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Galactic Merger

In this composite image of the galaxy grouping, the bright, distorted object at middle, left, is actually two colliding dwarf galaxies. Myriad star clusters have formed in the streamers of debris pulled from the galaxies and at the site of their head-on collision. The cigar-shaped object above the galaxy duo is another member of the group. A bridge of star clusters connects the trio. A long rope of bright star clusters points to the fourth member of the group, at lower right. The bright object in the center is a foreground star. The image was composed from observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX).
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Gallagher (The University of Western Ontario), and J. English (University of Manitoba)

The Milky Way's Spiral Structure And Our Place In It

Infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope have enabled scientists to map a new view of the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure. It is dominated by two major arms--Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus--and two minor arms--Norma and Sagittarius--which are located between the major arms. A radio-telescope survey also mapped a new spiral arm--the Far-3 kiloparsec arm--which lies along the central bar of the Milky Way.


In this annotated version of the map, our sun is show between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms near a small, partial arm called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Just Another Day at NASA

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before...

This is the deepest image of the Universe ever taken in near-infrared light by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The faintest and reddest objects (left inset) in the image are galaxies that correspond to lookback times of approximately 12.9 billion years to 13.1 billion years. No galaxies have been seen before at such early epochs. -- Press Release

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory: New, very deep exposure of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (Sagittarius A*).

Astronomers have long known that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A* for short), is a particularly poor eater. The fuel for this black hole comes from powerful winds blown off dozens of massive young stars that are concentrated nearby. These stars are located a relatively large distance away from Sgr A*, where the gravity of the black hole is weak, and so their high-velocity winds are difficult for the black hole to capture and swallow. Scientists have previously calculated that Sgr A* should consume only about 1% of the fuel carried in the winds. However, it now appears that Sgr A* consumes even less than expected -- Press Release

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken this infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, revealing the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away.

Infrared light is color-coded in the new picture, so that blue shows older stars, green shows organic dust and red highlights dust-enshrouded star formation. -- Press Release

X-ray, Optical & Infrared Images of Galaxies IC 4970 & NGC 6872

These images of a collision between two galaxies, NGC 6872 and IC 4970, contain X-rays from Chandra (purple), infrared data from Spitzer (red), and optical data from the Very Large Telescope (red, green and blue.) When combined these data reveal that IC 4970, the small galaxy at the top of the image, is feeding its supermassive black hole by drawing cold gas from its partner galaxy, the spiral NGC 6872. These two galaxies are in the process of merging, allowing the reservoir of fuel to be supplied to the growing black hole... -- Full Press Release

(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/M.Machacek; Optical: ESO/VLT; Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech)

Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra Composite of the Milky Way's Galactic Center

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched trio of images of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy. Each image shows the telescope's different wavelength view of the galactic center region, illustrating the unique science each observatory conducts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/CXC/STScI

Spitzer's infrared-light observations provide a detailed and spectacular view of the galactic center region. The swirling core of our galaxy harbors hundreds of thousands of stars that cannot be seen in visible light. These stars heat the nearby gas and dust. These dusty clouds glow in infrared light and reveal their often dramatic shapes. Some of these clouds harbor stellar nurseries that are forming new generations of stars. Like the downtown of a large city, the center of our galaxy is a crowded, active, and vibrant place. Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, E. Churchwell (University of Wisconsin), SSC, and STScI

X-rays detected by Chandra expose a wealth of exotic objects and high-energy features. In this image, pink represents lower energy X-rays and blue indicates higher energy. Hundreds of small dots show emission from material around black holes and other dense stellar objects. A supermassive black hole -- some four million times more massive than the Sun -- resides within the bright region in the lower right. The diffuse X-ray light comes from gas heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole, winds from giant stars, and stellar explosions. This central region is the most energetic place in our galaxy. Credit: NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al.

Although best known for its visible-light images, Hubble also observes over a limited range of infrared light. The galactic center is marked by the bright patch in the lower right. Along the left side are large arcs of warm gas that have been heated by clusters of bright massive stars. In addition, Hubble uncovered many more massive stars across the region. Winds and radiation from these stars create the complex structures seen in the gas throughout the image. This sweeping panorama is one of the sharpest infrared pictures ever made of the galactic center region. Credit: NASA, ESA, Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and STScI

Saturn's Largest Ring

This artist's conception shows a nearly invisible ring around Saturn -- the largest of the giant planet's many rings. It was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The ring is so diffuse that it reflects little sunlight, or visible light that we see with our eyes. But its dusty particles shine with infrared light, or heat radiation, that Spitzer can see.

The artist's conception simulates an infrared view of the giant ring. Saturn appears as just a small dot from outside the band of ice and dust. The bulk of the ring material starts about six million kilometers (3.7 million miles) away from the planet and extends outward roughly another 12 million kilometers (7.4 million miles). The ring's diameter is equivalent to roughly 300 Saturns lined up side to side.

The inset shows an enlarged image of Saturn, as seen by the W.M. Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, in infrared light. The ring, stars and wispy clouds are an artist's representation.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This video showcases the Saturnian system, beginning with the planet itself and panning out to its newest addition -- an enormous ring discovered in infrared light by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Click on the image for the movie.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This artist's conception shows a nearly invisible ring around Saturn — the largest of the giant planet's many rings. It was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The ring is huge, and far from the gas planet and the rest of its majestic rings.

The bulk of the ring material starts about six million kilometers (3.7 million miles) away from the planet and extends outward roughly another 12 million kilometers (7.4 million miles). The diameter of the ring is equivalent to 300 Saturns lined up side to side. The ring is thick too -- it's about 20 times as thick as the diameter of the planet. In fact, the entire volume of the ring is big enough to hold one billion Earths!

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This picture highlights a slice of Saturn's largest ring. The ring (the red band in the below figure) was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which detected infrared light, or heat, from the dusty ring material. Spitzer viewed the ring edge-on from its Earth-trailing orbit around the sun.

The ring has a diameter equivalent to 300 Saturns lined up side to side. And it's thick too -- about 20 Saturns could fit into its vertical height. The ring is tilted about 27 degrees from Saturn's main ring plane.

The Spitzer data were taken by its multiband imaging photometer and show infrared light with a wavelength of 24 microns.

The picture of Saturn was taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Spitzer image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Virginia
Hubble image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA

Spitzer Space Telescope Images Galaxy NGC 1097

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/The SINGS Team (SSC/Caltech)

A few of the interesting bits from the press release:

The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years away. It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The "eye" at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white.

The black hole is huge, about 100 million times the mass of our sun, and is feeding off gas and dust along with the occasional unlucky star. Our Milky Way's central black hole is tame by comparison, with a mass of a few million suns.

The galaxy's red spiral arms and the swirling spokes seen between the arms show dust heated by newborn stars. Older populations of stars scattered through the galaxy are blue. The fuzzy blue dot to the left, which appears to fit snuggly between the arms, is a companion galaxy.

Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes Double Team Galaxy NGC 6240

This image of a pair of colliding galaxies called NGC 6240 shows them in a rare, short-lived phase of their evolution just before they merge into a single, larger galaxy. The prolonged, violent collision has drastically altered the appearance of both galaxies and created huge amounts of heat -- turning NGC 6240 into an "infrared luminous" active galaxy. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI-ESA
Hat tip to Bad Astronomy (who explains the image in detail).