NASA’s Video Tour of Two Nearby Galaxies

Astronomers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Pennsylvania State University have used NASA’s Swift satellite to create the most detailed surveys of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies, in ultraviolet light. In this video tour, narrated by Stefan Immler of the Goddard Space Flight Center, we get a tour of those two galaxies based on the highest resolution images of the galaxies ever taken at ultraviolet wavelengths. Viewing in the ultraviolet allows astronomers to suppress the light of normal stars like the sun, which are not very bright at these higher energies, and provide a clearer picture of the hottest stars and star-formation regions.