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Great Observatories Present Rainbow of a Galaxy

April 24, 2006
NASA's Spitzer, Hubble and Chandra space observatories teamed up to create this multi-wavelength, false-colored view of the M82 galaxy. The lively portrait celebrates Hubble's 'sweet sixteen' birthday.

NASA's Spitzer, Hubble and Chandra space observatories teamed up to create this multi-wavelength, false-colored view of the M82 galaxy. The lively portrait celebrates Hubble's "sweet sixteen" birthday.

X-ray data recorded by Chandra appears in blue; infrared light recorded by Spitzer appears in red; Hubble's observations of hydrogen emission appear in orange, and the bluest visible light appears in yellow-green.

About the Movie
M82 is shown in all its wavelength glory. Dissolving from Chandra X-ray Observatory images of three X-ray energy bands to images in three bands of the infrared spectrum taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, and ending with the Hubble Space Telescope's visible- and near-infrared-light image. The three observatories' images were composited to reveal the galaxy's stars, as well as gas and dust features.

Note: The size of the Full-Res TIFF for the still image is 4299 samples x 3490 lines.

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