Infrared Portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud
From NASA’s Astronomy
Picture of the Day
Cosmic dust clouds
ripple across this
infrared portrait of our Milky Way's satellite galaxy,
the Large Magellanic Cloud.
In fact, the remarkable
composite image from the Herschel Space Observatory and
the Spitzer Space
Telescope show that dust clouds fill this neighboring dwarf galaxy,
much like dust along the
plane of the Milky Way itself.
The dust temperatures tend
to trace star forming activity. Spitzer data in blue hues indicate warm dust
heated by young stars.
Herschel's instruments
contributed the image data shown in red and green, revealing dust emission from
cooler and intermediate regions where star formation is just beginning or has
stopped.
Dominated by dust
emission, the Large Magellanic Cloud's infrared appearance is different from views in optical images. But
this galaxy's well-known Tarantula
Nebula still stands out, easily seen here as the brightest region to
the left of center.
A mere 160,000
light-years distant, the
Large Cloud of Magellan is about 30,000 light-years across.
