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AKARI’s view of Large Magellanic Cloud – star formation at work   This false-colour view of the Large Magellanic Cloud is a composite of images taken by AKARI at far-infrared wavelengths (60, 90 and 140 microns). The Large Magellanic Cloud is a neighbour galaxy to the Milky Way. Interstellar clouds in which new stars are forming are distributed over the entire galaxy. The bright region in the bottom-left is known as the 'Tarantula Nebula' and is a very productive factory of stars.
This figure is a part of a data set covering a sky portion of about 17 000 by 17 000 light-years.  This false-colour composite image was taken by the AKARI satellite in near- and mid-infrared wavelengths (3, 7 and 11 microns), and shows a portion of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This galaxy, a place of intense star formation, was observed by AKARI during its whole-sky survey and, for this image, during detailed observations.
In addition to the interstellar clouds, many stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen as white dots.  This image provides a view of the Large Magellanic Cloud in visible light. The distribution of stars can be clearly seen in this image. The red outlined area corresponds to AKARI's far-infrared image. The green area shows the location of the near- and mid-infrared image. AKARI's far-infrared image reveals that interstellar clouds cover the entire galaxy, while the stellar distribution is concentrated in the lower part of the image. This galaxy is located in the constellation Dorado, in the southern sky. When looking at the night sky, the Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen with a smaller neighbouring galaxy, called the Small Magellanic Cloud. Both appear as dim clouds in the sky.
The name 'Magellanic' is taken from the great 16th century navigator Magellan, who observed the two 'clouds' during his voyage around the world. Release date: 26 March 2007 |