Herschel and Spitzer See Nearby Galaxies' Stardust

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Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
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Trent J. Perrotto 202-358-0321
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Image advisory: 2012-006 Jan. 10, 2012

Herschel and Spitzer See Nearby Galaxies' Stardust

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-006&cid=release_2012-006

PASADENA, Calif. – The cold dust that builds blazing stars is revealed in new images that
combine observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led
mission with important NASA contributions; and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The new
images map the dust in the galaxies known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of the
closest neighbors to our own Milky Way galaxy.

The new images are available at the following links:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/multimedia/pia15254.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/multimedia/pia15255.html

The Large Magellanic Cloud looks like a fiery, circular explosion in the combined Herschel-
Spitzer infrared data. Ribbons of dust ripple through the galaxy, with significant fields of star
formation noticeable in the center, center-left and top right (the brightest center-left region is
called 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, for its appearance in visible light). The Small
Magellanic Cloud has a much more irregular shape. A stream of dust extends to the left in this
image, known as the galaxy's "wing," and a bar of star formation appears on the right.

The colors in these images indicate temperatures in the dust that permeate the Magellanic
Clouds. Colder regions show where star formation is at its earliest stages or is shut off, while
warm expanses point to new stars heating dust surrounding them. The coolest areas and objects
appear in red, corresponding to infrared light taken up by Herschel's Spectral and Photometric
Imaging Receiver at 250 microns, or millionths of a meter. Herschel's Photodetector Array
Camera and Spectrometer fills out the mid-temperature bands, shown in green, at 100 and 160
microns. The warmest spots appear in blue, courtesy of 24- and 70-micron data from Spitzer.

"Studying these galaxies offers us the best opportunity to study star formation outside of the
Milky Way," said Margaret Meixner, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute,
Baltimore, Md., and principal investigator for the mapping project. "Star formation affects the
evolution of galaxies, so we hope understanding the story of these stars will answer questions
about galactic life cycles."

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the two biggest satellite galaxies of our home
galaxy, the Milky Way, though they are still considered dwarf galaxies compared to the big
spiral of the Milky Way. Dwarf galaxies also contain fewer metals, or elements heavier than
hydrogen and helium. Such an environment is thought to slow the growth of stars. Star formation
in the universe peaked around 10 billion years ago, even though galaxies contained lesser
abundances of metallic dust. Previously, astronomers only had a general sense of the rate of star
formation in the Magellanic Clouds, but the new images enable them to study the process in
more detail.

The results were presented today at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society
in Austin, Texas.

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by
consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel
Project Office is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. JPL contributed
mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA
Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the United States' astronomical community.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Caltech
manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Herschel, visit http://www.herschel.caltech.edu,
http://www.nasa.gov/herschel and http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/index.html.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

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