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Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Infrared Portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud
NASA ^ | January 14, 2016 | (see photo credit)

Posted on 01/14/2016 3:59:50 AM PST by SunkenCiv

Explanation: 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.

January 14, 2016

(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; astronomy; infrared; largemagellaniccloud; lmc; nebula; science; tarantulanebula
[Credit: ESA / NASA / JPL-Caltech / STScI]

1 posted on 01/14/2016 3:59:50 AM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: brytlea; cripplecreek; decimon; bigheadfred; KoRn; Grammy; steelyourfaith; Mmogamer; dayglored; ...
The Big One

2 posted on 01/14/2016 4:03:42 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: SunkenCiv

“Dominated by dust emission”

Considering how smokers are now treated on this planet, perhaps some alien race is forcing theirs to smoke outside the galaxy.


3 posted on 01/14/2016 4:24:09 AM PST by fruser1
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