FOR RELEASE: 9:20 AM CST, January 6, 1999

ASTRONOMERS OBSERVE OUR NEAREST GALACTIC NEIGHBORS IN THE INFRARED

 

A three-color composite mosaic image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) observations made at the 2MASS southern facility at the Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory (CTIO). The bar region of the LMC is particularly visible in this dwarf irregular satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. 2MASS Atlas Images normally consist of 1-arcsecond pixels, but this mosaic has been binned to 5-arcsecond pixels. The mosaic covers 6.9 degrees by 6.1 degrees on the sky. The mosaic was constructed by E. Kopan (IPAC/Caltech). Full JPG size is 4.4 MB.


 

A three-color composite mosaic image of the 30 Doradus region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) observations made at the 2MASS southern facility at the Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory (CTIO). 30 Doradus, commonly known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a very bright emission region in which stars are currently forming. This full-resolution mosaic covers 0.7 degrees by 0.5 degrees on the sky. The mosaic was constructed by E. Kopan (IPAC/Caltech). Full JPG size is 564 kB.


 

An image of the 2MASS southern facility at the Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory (CTIO). The dome houses an automated 1.3-m telescope which scans the southern sky simultaneously in three near-infrared bands. Full JPG size is 27 kB.


 

The Large Magellanic Cloud as imaged by the Spatial Infrared Imaging Telescope onboard the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX). This mid-IR image from the MSX A band covers the wavelength region between 6.8 and 10.8 microns. This band preferentially detects emission from the hot dust (small grains and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs) found in the diffuse interstellar medium near star formation regions. This emission appears as filamentary structure in the image. Other objects which are prominent at this wavelength are star formation regions themselves, asymptotic giant branch stars, and dusty supergiants. Full GIF size is 426 kB.


For more information about 2MASS, please see The 2MASS website at IPAC and The 2MASS website at UMass.

For more information about MSX, please see the MSX website at the Air Force Research Laboratory VSBC.

The Two Micron All Sky Survey is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.

Last updated 1999 Jan 5 by Schuyler D. Van Dyk.