Shedding New Light on the Whirlpool Galaxy

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a magnificent spiral galaxy that has been studied across the spectrum by NASA’s Great Observatories. This remarkable video uses two dimensional images and three dimensional visualizations to contrast and compare the different views of infrared (Spitzer Space Telescope), visible (Hubble Space Telescope), and X-ray (Chandra X-ray Observatory) observations. Within these spectral bands, each wavelength region illustrates a different component of the stars, gas, and dust that comprise the