Friday galaxy blogging

Blogging cats is common. Some people do orchids. I do galaxies.

The Eternal Life of Stardust Portrayed in New NASA Image (8/31/06)

A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is helping astronomers understand how stardust is recycled in galaxies.

The cosmic portrait shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy named after Ferdinand Magellan, the seafaring explorer who observed the murky object at night during his fleet's historic journey around Earth. Now, nearly 500 years after Magellan's voyage, astronomers are studying Spitzer's view of this galaxy to learn more about the circular journey of stardust, from stars to space and back again.

Large Magellanic Cloud - click for 720×900 image