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- The Galactic Legacy
Infrared Mid-Plane Survey
Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE)
used Spitzer to survey the
Milky Way Galaxy’s disk
and confirm that we live in
a barred spiral galaxy. The
whole survey required
stitching together more
than 800,000 individual
frames; this segment
represents just 6 percent
of the entire project. NASA/
JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - Spitzer discovered four
of the seven known planets
around TRAPPIST-1, a dwarf
star located 40 light-years
away in the constellation
Aquarius. The system
stands out because all
of the planets appear to
be roughly Earth-sized,
and at least three lie in the
star’s habitable zone where
liquid water could exist.
This artist’s view shows the
scene from one of those
potentially watery worlds.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/T. PYLE (IPAC) - The protostar Herbig-
Haro 46/47 resides deep
within a dusty Bok globule
that absorbs all the visible
light trying to escape.
Spitzer used its infrared
vision to look inside and
capture the embryonic star
as well as the twin jets of
molecular gas it is ejecting.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/A. NORIEGA-CRESPO
(SSC/CALTECH)/H. KLINE (JPL) - Brown dwarfs are failed stars
that don’t possess enough
mass to trigger hydrogen
fusion in their cores. As such,
they remain cool and emit
most of their light at infrared
wavelengths. Spitzer found the
two young brown dwarfs seen
at the center of this image
with the help of ground-based
telescopes at Calar Alto
Observatory in Spain and
the Caltech Submillimeter
Observatory in Hawaii.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/CALAR ALTO OBSERVATORY/
CALTECH SUBMILLIMETER OBSERVATORY
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