Spitzer's Stunning Portrait of Andromeda

Universe Today. ^ | Oct 14, 2005 | Staff

[kanawa]

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a stunning infrared view of Messier 31, the famous spiral galaxy also known as Andromeda.

Andromeda is the most-studied galaxy outside our own Milky Way, yet Spitzer's sensitive infrared eyes have detected captivating new features, including bright, aging stars and a spiral arc in the center of the galaxy. The infrared image also reveals an off-centered ring of star formation and a hole in the galaxy's spiral disk of arms. These asymmetrical features may have been caused by interactions with the several satellite galaxies that surround Andromeda.

"Occasionally small satellite galaxies run straight through bigger galaxies," said Dr. Karl Gordon of the Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, lead investigator of the new observation. "It appears a little galaxy punched a hole through Andromeda's disk, much like a pebble breaks the surface of a pond."

The new false-color Andromeda image is available at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer/ .

Approximately 2.5 million light-years away, Andromeda is the closest spiral galaxy and is the only one visible to the naked eye. Unlike our Milky Way galaxy, which we view from the inside, Andromeda is studied from the outside. Astronomers believe that Andromeda and the Milky Way will eventually merge together.

Spitzer detects dust heated by stars in the galaxy. Its multiband imaging photometer's 24-micron detector recorded approximately 11,000 separate infrared snapshots over 18 hours to create the new comprehensive mosaic. This instrument's resolution and sensitivity is a vast improvement over previous infrared technologies, enabling scientists to trace the spiral structures within Andromeda to an unprecedented level of detail.

"In contrast to the smooth appearance of Andromeda at optical wavelengths, the Spitzer image reveals a well-defined nuclear bulge and a system of spiral arms," said Dr. Susan Stolovy, a co-investigator from the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

The galaxy's central bulge glows in the light emitted by warm dust from old, giant stars. Just outside the bulge, a system of inner spiral arms can be seen, and outside this, a well-known prominent ring of star formation.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a division of Caltech.

[clyde asbury]

Every galaxy has the same apparent brightness as an equivalent sized patch of the Milky Way (luminosity law).

The magnitudes given for objects can be deceiving for this reason. Two galaxies of the same magnitude can be very different in surface brightness.

With GOTO systems today, it's much less frustrating than when star-hopping was the only option.

[Alas Babylon!]

You know at this rate someday we will be able to look far enough to see our own a$$es!

No, I heard it was Uranus.

[FierceDraka]

Go see "Serenity" for some space opera entertainment.

We got the Firefly DVD set the other day. Awesome show, can't understand why Fox gave it the shaft like they did. Kind of makes me think of The Outlaw Josie Wales set in space.

I just hope it gets picked up by the SciFi Channel and put back to back with Battlestar on Friday nights.

[FierceDraka]

Here's a page where you can download videos of the simulations of the inevitable collsion between our galaxy and Andromeda:

http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/Gravitas/spiralmetamorphosis.html

The link pops in a new window.

[FierceDraka]

There is no way in heck that we are the only intelligent species and Earth is the only habitable planet in this universe

That's right! And that's why it is our duty, nae, our biological imperative to:
1. Crack the secrets of physics;
2. Find ways to travel to the stars;
3. Conquer as much as we can, terraforming all the way;
4. Put free men and women on so many worlds that no single catastrophe could ever wipe us out completely.
5. Look back at the UN-controlled stay-at-homes on Earth the same way we present day Americans look at our Euro-weenie cousins, and laugh our a$$es off over rounds of jinnintonix.

[FierceDraka]

We could also look something like this:

I've read about that. Barred spirals aren't supposed to be that common, either.

[FierceDraka]

Many-armed barred spiral Milky Way, comin' at ya! (Pops in new window)

[clyde asbury]

I've read about that. Barred spirals aren't supposed to be that common, either.

Yes, I was surprised to learn of the new Spitzer results. The picture I posted is NGC 1300, an extreme example of a barred spiral.

Thanks for the link.

[Maurice Tift]

Not to say they are making visits to toothless men

That's exactly right! You have to understand how these space aliens think. They spend years looking for one person that no one will believe, and then while he is stumbling in the desert in a drunken stupor - whammo - they grab him, take him to their spaceship and perform all sorts of really weird experiments on him. Then, just to make sure that no one believes him, they telepathically beam messages to his brain that say: Jim, you are the special one - tell everyone of the great space thermos!

[sandbar]

LOL!!!

[RightWhale]

We like to live on the Gulf coast, in the Yucatan, on the slopes of volcanos, on top of the Ring of Fire, at the base of the biggest, most active mountain building chain, anyplace that faces eventual natural catastrophe. Why not go out to space and live with a couple millimeters of aluminum between us and the absolute eternal vacuum or on a distant planet where the flux lines are inverted and make our brains turn inside out. Sure, that's the thing to do: go out to live floating on a methane sea on Titan and call FEMA when there is a moon tsunami.