Andrew Yee
January 13th 06, 03:30 PM
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin (818) 648-9734
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
January 10, 2006
News Release: 2006-004
Spitzer Captures Our Galaxy's Bustling Center
A new infrared mosaic from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope offers a
stunning view of the stellar hustle and bustle that takes place at our
Milky Way galaxy's center. The picture shows throngs of mostly old stars,
on the order of hundreds of thousands, amid fantastically detailed clouds
of glowing dust lit up by younger, massive stars.
"With Spitzer, we can peer right into the heart of our own galaxy and see
breathtaking detail," said Dr. Susan Stolovy of the Spitzer Science Center
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "This picture is
crammed with fascinating features that we have just begun to explore."
The image is available online at
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer
The Milky Way's core is indeed a very busy place. Stars are packed
together like subway riders as they race around the supermassive black
hole that lies at the center. Our sun is located 26,000 light-years away
in a more peaceful, spacious neighborhood, out in the galactic suburbs. It
circles the galaxy about every 225 million years, which amounts to 20
trips over the course of its 4.5-billion-year lifetime. In contrast, stars
at the galactic center complete one lap in only a few million years or
less.
"One question we hope to address is how stars can form so efficiently in a
place like the galactic center," said Stolovy. "Stars there are still able
to form in an environment with unusually strong magnetic fields and tidal
shear forces."
Viewing the center of the Milky Way from Earth can be difficult because
the plane of the galaxy's spiral disk is filled with cold dust. Visible
light coming from this distant region is virtually impossible to observe
because dust dims it by a factor of one trillion. But infrared light can
shine through this dust. The infrared light in this Spitzer view has
wavelengths about 10 times longer than what the human eye can see, and is
dimmed only about four times.
This infrared advantage, combined with Spitzer's superb image quality, has
resulted in the deepest and sharpest view yet of an expansive stretch of
the galactic center. The pictured region, located in the Sagittarius
constellation, is 900 light-years across. It covers the same area on the
sky that a grid of four by three full moons would occupy.
Features within the new mosaic include dust clouds of a dizzying variety,
such as glowing filaments, wind-blown lobes flapping outward from the
plane of the galaxy, and finger-like pillars. The Spitzer image also shows
newborn stars just beginning to break out of their dark and dusty cocoons,
and exquisitely detailed dark clouds so dense they are opaque even in
infrared wavelengths. Some of these features are located near the physical
center of our galaxy, while others lie closer to Earth.
"Our Spitzer data, combined with data obtained by other telescopes, will
allow us to determine which of these objects are truly at the galactic
center, and which are in spiral arms along the way," said Stolovy. "This
survey will help us to better understand the mass distribution and
structure of our own galaxy and how it compares to other galaxies."
Stolovy and her colleagues are particularly thrilled about the high
quality of the Spitzer image when they remember the challenges they
overcame in obtaining it. The galactic center is very bright in infrared
wavelengths, and could have potentially saturated Spitzer's sensitive
detectors. The astronomers solved this problem by taking advantage of
Spitzer's ability to take very short exposures. They collected the
thousands of snapshots that make up their final mosaic in just under 16
hours.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are
conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. JPL is a division of
Caltech. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., built
Spitzer's infrared array camera, which took the new image. The
instrument's principal investigator is Dr. Giovanni Fazio of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Stolovy presented the image today during the 207th meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
Additional graphics and more information about Spitzer is at
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer
For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/home/
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin (818) 648-9734
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
January 10, 2006
News Release: 2006-004
Spitzer Captures Our Galaxy's Bustling Center
A new infrared mosaic from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope offers a
stunning view of the stellar hustle and bustle that takes place at our
Milky Way galaxy's center. The picture shows throngs of mostly old stars,
on the order of hundreds of thousands, amid fantastically detailed clouds
of glowing dust lit up by younger, massive stars.
"With Spitzer, we can peer right into the heart of our own galaxy and see
breathtaking detail," said Dr. Susan Stolovy of the Spitzer Science Center
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "This picture is
crammed with fascinating features that we have just begun to explore."
The image is available online at
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer
The Milky Way's core is indeed a very busy place. Stars are packed
together like subway riders as they race around the supermassive black
hole that lies at the center. Our sun is located 26,000 light-years away
in a more peaceful, spacious neighborhood, out in the galactic suburbs. It
circles the galaxy about every 225 million years, which amounts to 20
trips over the course of its 4.5-billion-year lifetime. In contrast, stars
at the galactic center complete one lap in only a few million years or
less.
"One question we hope to address is how stars can form so efficiently in a
place like the galactic center," said Stolovy. "Stars there are still able
to form in an environment with unusually strong magnetic fields and tidal
shear forces."
Viewing the center of the Milky Way from Earth can be difficult because
the plane of the galaxy's spiral disk is filled with cold dust. Visible
light coming from this distant region is virtually impossible to observe
because dust dims it by a factor of one trillion. But infrared light can
shine through this dust. The infrared light in this Spitzer view has
wavelengths about 10 times longer than what the human eye can see, and is
dimmed only about four times.
This infrared advantage, combined with Spitzer's superb image quality, has
resulted in the deepest and sharpest view yet of an expansive stretch of
the galactic center. The pictured region, located in the Sagittarius
constellation, is 900 light-years across. It covers the same area on the
sky that a grid of four by three full moons would occupy.
Features within the new mosaic include dust clouds of a dizzying variety,
such as glowing filaments, wind-blown lobes flapping outward from the
plane of the galaxy, and finger-like pillars. The Spitzer image also shows
newborn stars just beginning to break out of their dark and dusty cocoons,
and exquisitely detailed dark clouds so dense they are opaque even in
infrared wavelengths. Some of these features are located near the physical
center of our galaxy, while others lie closer to Earth.
"Our Spitzer data, combined with data obtained by other telescopes, will
allow us to determine which of these objects are truly at the galactic
center, and which are in spiral arms along the way," said Stolovy. "This
survey will help us to better understand the mass distribution and
structure of our own galaxy and how it compares to other galaxies."
Stolovy and her colleagues are particularly thrilled about the high
quality of the Spitzer image when they remember the challenges they
overcame in obtaining it. The galactic center is very bright in infrared
wavelengths, and could have potentially saturated Spitzer's sensitive
detectors. The astronomers solved this problem by taking advantage of
Spitzer's ability to take very short exposures. They collected the
thousands of snapshots that make up their final mosaic in just under 16
hours.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are
conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. JPL is a division of
Caltech. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., built
Spitzer's infrared array camera, which took the new image. The
instrument's principal investigator is Dr. Giovanni Fazio of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Stolovy presented the image today during the 207th meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
Additional graphics and more information about Spitzer is at
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer
For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/home/