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PIA14107: Galaxies Near and Far (Artist's Concept)
 Mission:  Spitzer Space Telescope
 Product Size:  3500 x 2700 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  IPAC-Caltech
 Other  
Information: 
JPL News Release 2011-200
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14107.tif (28.35 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14107.jpg (677.8 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This split view shows how a normal spiral galaxy around our local universe (left) might have looked back in the distant universe, when astronomers think galaxies would have been filled with larger populations of hot, bright stars (right).

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered that distant populations of galaxies formed massive, bright stars more commonly than today's "diet-conscious" galaxies. Such early galaxies would have been brighter, bluer and more irregular than spiral galaxies today due to the large proportion of massive stars.

The Spitzer observations also demonstrate that these distant galaxies fed off steady streams of gas, rather than bursts of gas stirred up from collisions with other galaxies.

This artist's rendering is derived from the Hubble image of NGC 1309.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

Image Addition Date:
2011-06-30